Tag: roh results

ROH Manhattan Mayhem results: Two title matches

Posted on by Justin Knipper

ROH was at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on Saturday night for their Manhattan Mayhem TV tapings. Six of the matches were broadcast live on the HonorClub streaming service.

Quick results —

  • Dragon Lee defeated Jonathan Gresham
  • The Bouncers defeated Soldiers of Savagery and Coast 2 Coast in a three-way match
  • Rush defeated TK O’Ryan
  • ROH World Champion Matt Taven defeated Kenny King and Jay Lethal in a three-way match to retain his title
  • LifeBlood (Bandido, Mark Haskins, Tracy Williams & PJ Black) defeated Villain Enterprises (Marty Scurll, Flip Gordon, PCO & Brody King) 
  • The Briscoes defeated Guerrillas of Destiny in a New York City street fight to win the ROH Tag Team titles

Dragon Lee defeated Jonathan Gresham

Great opener. They shook hands before the match, but Gresham was hesitant in doing so. He tried to swing himself into an octopus hold, but the two instead went into a really quick exchange of counters and strikes and the crowd began to percolate. 

Gresham has been teasing a heel turn since his match with Silas Young at the last PPV. He’s gotten way jacked since seeing him at Best in the World last month. These two had a match in NJPW’s Best of the Super Juniors last month and the first few minutes of this were more heated than that one. 

These two slapped the hell out of each other both on the chest and in the face until the ref turned his back and Gresham landed a very unsportsmanlike sack-tap that elicited tons of boos. 

Gresham slowed things down for a while, bullying Lee and stretching him. It reminded me of Daniel Bryan when he went heel with the Wyatt Family a couple years ago, when he modified his style to make it less flashy and more mean.

Lee made a comeback and hit the Shibata running dropkick in the corner. They started trading tons of high spots and more strikes. They both wrestled on the top rope until Dragon Lee was able to land the tree of woe stomp and later an exposed running knee to Gresham’s temple to grab the win. Really good, and that’s crazy to say considering the quality of the G1 this week.

– Matt Taven came out wearing a Red Sox jersey. He recently threw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game and talked about that. He said it was the greatest moment of his life and people booed. He said tonight the rivalry between him and “that Melvin” Jay Lethal comes to an end. He said he’s going to prove the critics wrong because he’s Matt Taven. It was a good quick promo.

– Kenny King came out and called Taven’s jersey lame. He said he didn’t care who he beat because the last time he was in Manhattan he beat Jushin Liger and Great Muta. He insisted on being in Taven’s match with Jay Lethal. The crowd screamed “Noooooooo” and then started chanting “shut the f**k up” at him.

Taven basically said he was Matt Taven again and King called him more names as he went to the back. King was now in the ROH World Championship match.

Jay Lethal stormed out and got in Taven’s face. They got into it and started punching each other until “security” and referees came out and broke them up. The crowd was lukewarm at first but then started chanting “let them fight.” 

The Bouncers (Beer City Bruiser & Brawler Milonas) defeated Soldiers of Savagery (Moses Maddox & Jasper Kaun) and Coast 2 Coast (LSG & Shaheem Ali) in a three-way match

The Bouncers drank beer in the crowd and Beer City Bruiser came out with a cigar in his mouth. Is he doing a Crusher parody?

LSG and Bruiser started off. Bruiser did the “I can’t bite — I ain’t got no teeth!” spot and it bombed yet again. You could here one guy chuckling as production zoomed in on Bruiser’s face.

Milonas and Moses from Sons of Savagery were in next. Milonas ironically called Moses “fat boy.” SOS are huge dudes and remind me of guys you’d see in EVOLVE or NXT these days. The big guys hoss’d out and exchanged shoulder blocks and punches.

LSG tagged Milonas as he ran the ropes and Moses then tagged out to Jasper. They later chokeslammed Bruiser through the timekeeper’s table, so referee Brian Hebner ejected them from the match. The crowd booed and started chanting “bullsh*t.” They perked back up when The Bouncers landed the Closing Time (the Smoking Gunns’ Sidewinder) on LSG to win.

Vinny Marseglia and TK O’Ryan attacked The Bouncers with chairs after the match. People booed — but aside from one girl with pink hair in the front row it felt like cold heat.

Marseglia smoked Bruiser’s cigar. The Kingdom sat on the chairs and talked about how they thought they should’ve been the Tag Team Champions long ago and then burned the cigar out on Bruiser’s chest. TK O’Ryan said he liked whiskey better. This segment was borderline embarrassing. No one seemed to care.

Rush defeated TK O’Ryan

O’Ryan stayed in the ring and called out Rush, who then made his entrance. He wrestled at Arena Mexico on Friday night. People were way into Rush but didn’t react much to O’Ryan.

O’Ryan wore new tights tonight so I guess he’s updating his look. The crowd was really quiet when he was on offense unless he cued the audience to boo for him. He did the Eddie Guerrero rolling vertical suplexes and did the Eddie shimmy to the crowd for some reason.

Rush spit on O’Ryan and started no-selling all of O’Ryan’s chops, then did a snap dragon suplex (like his brother Dragon Lee did in the match before). People started going nuts when Rush started whipping O’Ryan into the barricades. 

This quickly turned into a disaster when Rush went to do a surprise back kick to O’Ryan, but Rush completely whiffed because O’Ryan was out of place. He sat up before Rush could see him and the camera caught the whole thing. Maybe on the side opposite the hard cam it looked okay because Rush smacked his thigh — but wow, that didn’t look good.

Rush then tried doing a belly-to-belly into the bottom turnbuckle, but it looked atrocious and O’Ryan bumped short and on his side. The crowd barely reacted. Rush obliterated O’Ryan with the Bull’s Horns for the win moments later. It looked crazy. He was extremely over with this crowd, but they really didn’t care about O’Ryan and it was stark.

Rush posed with fans in the front row and did the LIJ pose. One “fan” wearing a glittery Pierroth mask attacked him. It was Dalton Castle and they did the Jericho/Rey Mysterio or Jericho/Naito angle. Castle did his own Bull’s Horns and took the mask off before they cut to a promo package about Jay Lethal. 

ROH World Champion Matt Taven defeated Kenny King and Jay Lethal in a three-way match to retain his title

Alex Shelley was on commentary for this match. They played up Lethal’s ties to NYC and how bummed out he was to lose the ROH title at MSG. Half the crowd was for Lethal and just about half were for Taven, but everyone seemed to hate Kenny King. 

Once this got going, it was pretty good. It didn’t feel like there were any awkward transitions between any of the guys. King was a little clumsy in how he does some moves. He makes up for what he lacks in the ring as a decent heel and his ability to rile the crowd up.

Taven and Lethal started slapping each other in the corner. King broke things up and then he and Taven got into it. King was trapped in the corner when Lethal put Taven in a tree of woe and dropkicked Taven, then King. Taven and Lethal went pretty hard at each other and it looked real crisp. 

King later took both Taven and Lethal out with a double lariat and everyone sold on the mat after that. King then did a capoeira kick to Lethal on the apron and Taven dropkicked king to the floor. Taven did a few dives, then Lethal did a few too. The crowd really heated up here. The rhythm was sort of fractured before but from here it felt like things began to cook.

Taven frog splashed Lethal as he tried locking on a figure four on King. All three traded submissions and about three guys in the crowd chanted “fight forever.”

King landed a double blockbuster for two on both Lethal and then Taven. When Lethal hit the Lethal Injection on Taven, the place actually went nuts. It’s so strange because they weren’t making a sound just a few seconds earlier.

King snuck in and landed his version of the Lethal Injection and a Royal Flush on Lethal, but Taven came from the corner and spiked King with the Climax. He then pinned Lethal to win the match. This was pretty good. 

LifeBlood (Bandido, Mark Haskins, Tracy Williams & PJ Black) defeated Villain Enterprises (Marty Scurll, Flip Gordon, PCO & Brody King) 

Good match with an excited crowd, especially towards the end. Villain Enterprises all came out in gear that looked like a steampunk remix of Demolition’s old ring gear. Williams and Scurll were in first. The crowd was hot for Scurll and chanted his name over and over. All four got in the ring and squared off a minute later. 

Bandido and Gordon were in next. Ian Riccaboni said these two could be a main event anywhere. I think that might actually be true. Gordon tagged out to King, who did crazy lucha spots on the ropes.

Haskins and Scurll were solid together. Bandido later dove off the top rope and double-stomped Scurll’s left arm. 

Later, King did a huge tope con giro to the floor, then Scurll back body dropped PCO onto everyone else outside. The crowd was freaking out. PCO looks huge and was great here. He has the one-strap top, old school style. 

Bandido legitimately caught PCO mid-air and powerslammed him. What the hell? Then he did a dive from the top to the floor and Colt Cabana said he didn’t even know that was a move. I didn’t either. It was a crazy twisting delayed moonsault thing. He’s nuts. 

PCO did a giant moonsault onto everyone and the place lost it. Bandido did a running Canadian Destroyer, but the timing was botched and PCO landed awkwardly near the edge of the apron. 

King went on a tear and almost pinned Haskins when everyone started chanting “This is awesome.” Bandido hit the 21-Plex and Black landed a 450 to win the match. Black celebrated with LifeBlood afterwards. 

The Briscoes (Mark & Jay Briscoe) defeated Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) in a New York City street fight to win the ROH Tag Team titles

This was relentless. Wow. The crowd chanted “G-O-D” over and over when Tonga and Loa came to the ring. They sounded like the biggest stars on the show so far. People started chanting “New Japan” when they stepped through the ropes. Yikes. 

When the bell rang, things got out of control quickly. This all felt like FMW meets Crossfit, if that makes any sense. There were always at least three chairs in the ring at all times.

The Briscoes pulled out a bunch of weapons from under the ring. They got into a rapid-paced brawl and didn’t let their feet off the pedal until the finish. Tonga did a crazy missile dropkick on the floor and landed on his back.

They beat the tar out of each other with chairs and kendo sticks. Mark Briscoe put Loa through a table, or rather down onto it, and onto the floor. Loa later body slammed him through the table and finally split it into pieces. 

This just never let up. Loa dropped Mark off the apron onto a pile of chairs on the floor. Loa destroyed him with chair shots. This all had the same vibe as Jon Moxley’s G1 matches this week, raw and violent with none of the guys in the match holding back in the least. 

Guerrillas of Destiny super powerbombed Mark onto Jay Briscoe off the apron through a table and the crowd freaked again. As if things couldn’t get more nuts, Mark dragged a ladder out from under the ring. Jay was cut open and was juicing everywhere. 

Just as Loa and Mark were atop the ladder, the HonorClub stream cut out. It wouldn’t be a proper HonorClub show without the stream going out. Thankfully it didn’t miss the absolutely most insane finishing spot I’ve seen all year.

Mark and Tonga fought on the top of the ladder and there was a table set up in one corner of the ring. Jay came from underneath Tonga and put him on his shoulders and they did a high-angle Doomsday Device through said table and got the win. It looked crazy. The Briscoe Brothers are now 11-time ROH Tag Team Champions. Well deserved. 

We’ll be back tomorrow covering ROH’s next HonorClub show, Mass Hysteria.

ROH State of the Art results: Defy or Deny match

Posted on by Justin Knipper

Quick results —

  • The Allure (Mandy Leon & Angelina Love) w/ Velvet Sky defeated Notorious Nattie & Mazzerati in a dark match
  • Tracy Williams defeated Bully Ray in a no DQ match
  • Mazzerati defeated Danika Della Rouge
  • Mark Briscoe defeated Josh Woods
  • Jeff Cobb defeated PJ Black
  • The Bouncers (Beer City Bruiser & Brawler Milonas) defeated The Kingdom (Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan), Rush & Dalton Castle, Coast 2 Coast (LSG & Shaheem Ali), Silas Young & Shane Taylor, and the Voros Twins in a tag team gauntlet match
  • Jay Lethal defeated Jay Briscoe
  • ROH World Champion Matt Taven defeated Flip Gordon, Mark Haskins, and PCO in a Defy or Deny match

Ring of Honor’s State of the Art mini-tour came to Portland, Oregon on Sunday night, marking the company’s first-ever appearance in the city. I had the privilege of covering the show in person from PSU’s Viking Pavilion.

I was told by event staff that the approximate gate was 600. Viking Pavilion’s max capacity is 3,000.

The Allure (Mandy Leon & Angelina Love) defeated Mazzerati & Notorious Nattie in a dark match

Fine match before the live stream began. Despite there only being a few hundred people in the building, the crowd was loud and sound carried extremely well in the venue.

The Allure had new ring gear tonight. They scored the win after Angelina Love landed a Botox Injection kick (yakuza kick) on Mazzerati after Velvet Sky sprayed perfume in Mazzerati’s face.

– The live broadcast kicked off after this. Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana were on commentary. The crowd was pretty wild for Cabana and chanted his name when he came out. Referee Todd Sinclair also got a surprisingly boisterous reaction. Someone even made a sign of support for him.

– Bully Ray came out before the show could properly kick off. He cut a promo on people in the crowd, said one guy looked homeless and insulted his wife, then explained that he wanted a match now because he wanted to get out of Portland as soon as possible.

Tracy Williams then came out with a trash can filled with wrestling weapons (e.g. a kendo stick, a lid, possibly another kendo stick, etc.). He challenged Ray to a no DQ match to the delight of the crowd. Before he gave Sinclair the go ahead to ring the bell, Ray low blowed Williams.

Tracy Williams defeated Bully Ray in a no DQ match

Ray abused Williams for a few minutes. He bashed Williams with a garbage can, then did a couple of suplexes and screamed “I invented Suplex City, [expletive]!” The crowd loved when Ray said that.

Williams made a comeback and put Bully Ray into a rope-assisted triangle choke/armbar. Ray came back soon, though, and laid into Williams with the kendo stick. Williams turned the tide by locking an iron claw onto Ray’s, uh, crotchal region.

When Ray missed a diving senton from the top rope, Williams slid Ray into a crucifix pin and won. Sinclair counted quickly because earlier on in the match Ray gave Sinclair a hard time for not counting fast enough.

Ray attacked both Williams and Todd Sinclair after the bell. Mark Haskins of Lifeblood came out to make the save but was put through a table for his efforts. The crowd seemed to love Haskins, but also chanted for Bully Ray after he used the table.

There wasn’t much to this. The crowd liked the violence and enjoyed screaming at Bully Ray, and he sure was in full effect. This wasn’t Heatwave ’98 levels of brutality, but the sentiment was harsh and heel-appropriate.

Mazzerati defeated Danika Della Rouge

This was short. Mazzerati was trained by Kenny King and has wrestled in China. Della Rouge has flame-pink hair and has trained at the NJPW Dojo in LA. She also took part in a WWE tryout in Orlando earlier this year and has only been wrestling for a year. Mazzerati won with a hard low roundhouse kick.

The Allure came out after the match and ambushed both wrestlers. They marked Della Rouge’s forehead in lipstick with their Allure logo.

After the match, Mandy Leon and Velvet Sky got into it with a fan in a cutoff shirt in the front row. From my perspective, it looked as though Leon threw a pulled punch or slap to intimidate the fan. A portion of the crowd went “Oooh.” Leon didn’t look happy. Velvet Sky then began pointing in the direction beyond the bleachers while jawjacking with the same fan, challenging him to get in the ring.

The fan went on social media after the show and explained that Leon spit on him. I didn’t see this, though a few other fans who attended have corroborated the aforementioned spitting.

Mark Briscoe defeated Josh Woods

Hard-hitting brawl with lots of stiff strikes. Woods, a BJJ black belt, won ROH’s 2017 Top Prospect Tournament. He was great here. Mark Briscoe was loudly over with the Portland crowd. Instead of shaking hands, Briscoe face-mushed Woods and the match was underway.

Woods used a number of Greco-Roman style suplexes, both in the ring and on the floor. He has a great knack for taking what looks good in real combat — strikes, takedowns, suplexes, functional submissions — and blends it into his in-ring work without it ever feeling forced or unnatural.

Briscoe relished the styles clash and went hard at Woods with equally stiff chops and elbows. The two brawled around the ring for a bit in the middle of this. Briscoe at one point did a diving elbow drop to the floor from the second turnbuckle.

At one point Woods even gave Briscoe a German suplex to the floor from the apron and both landed with a loud thud. The crowd ate that one up.

In the end, Briscoe teased using a chair in the ring. When referee Benjamin Roberts took the chair from Briscoe, he turned his back, which allowed for Briscoe to sneak in a low blow on Woods. Briscoe then landed a Froggy Bow from the top for the win. Good match.

Jeff Cobb defeated PJ Black

Cobb had a solid following in Portland. He’s been wrestling in the Pacific Northwest for a few years now, making appearances for both Seattle’s Defy and Vancouver, Canada’s ECCW.

The match had an even tempo from the bell, lots of chess-wrestling early. Cobb later landed a beautiful dropkick, like almost Okada-level grace without the height, but still, what the hell? It’s amazing to see in person.

At one point when Black sprung off the top rope, Cobb caught him in mid-air, almost fell, then saved the spot, deadlifting Black from a powerslam hold to a vertical suplex hold. Big reaction from the crowd on that one. Black reversed the suplex into an inside cradle for two.

Later, when Cobb went for a standing moonsault, Black switched into a perpendicular position and caught Cobb in a Koji clutch submission. This was a really cool spot. Cobb inched his way to the bottom rope to break the hold.

Black later landed a nice flying double stomp and a springboard quebrada into the ring on Cobb for a count of two. It was here I noticed that the live stream started cutting in and out and it ended up missing good portions of this match. I assure you it was good.

The finish saw Cobb use a super German suplex from the top and followed with a regular German and then the Tour of the Islands swinging powerslam for the win. This was great live, but the streaming issues were disastrous.

The Bouncers won a tag team gauntlet match

The teams involved were: Silas Young & Shane Taylor, the Voros Twins, Rush & Dalton Castle, Coast 2 Coast, and The Kingdom (Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan)

The Voros Twins and Taylor & Young were in first. The Voros Twins are skinny blonde kids from Canada by way of Hungary. The crowd wasn’t familiar with them but were supportive by the end of their time in the match. After Taylor landed his Greetings From 216 fire-thunder driver on one Voros, Young put both of them into an abdominal stretch at the same time and they tapped.

Taylor then brought a cigarette into the ring and lit it for Young, who took a few drags off it while still holding that double-ab stretch. Very nice touch.

There were more issues with the live stream early on in the match.

Next team in was the “wild card” team of Rush and Dalton Castle. Castle was very popular and got a loud reaction when he arrived. Rush’s charisma is somehow even more intense and striking live than it is on television, he and wrestled like there were 10,000 people in the audience.

Rush and Castle argued with each other before they started wrestling. The two worked well together even though I don’t think they’ve ever tagged before. They did quite a bit of smooth double-team work which I don’t think anyone expected. Castle’s suplexes looked great and his new aggressive heel character looks to be working well. The two did a nice knee-strike to German suplex combo at one point. Rush landed a wicked Bull’s Horn basement dropkick to Young to eliminate him and Taylor.

Coast 2 Coast (Shaheem Ali & LSG) were in next and wrestled with a lot of energy. When Rush had another chance to use the Bull’s Horns, Castle tripped Rush. Rush then attacked Castle and they brawled to the floor, then to the stage. Rush choked Castle with some lighting equipment near commentary. The two were then counted out and eliminated.

The Bouncers were in next. Riccaboni referred to Milonas as a “walking strip mall.” Some of the stuff he does, the way he moves, it makes you forget how huge he is. He’s really agile. Bruiser, too. The crowd was pretty into the team and chanted “beer” a lot. The Bouncers hit Closing Time (aka the Sidewinder used by the Smokin’ Guns) on LSG to eliminate C2C.

Before this match, ROH staff carried Vinny Marseglia to the ring covered in what looked to be an old blanket. He waited under the ring and came out when The Kingdom’s music hit when TK O’Ryan walked to the ring. They had a short mini-match together, but the Bouncers won after Milonas hit a second rope superplex and Bruiser did a diving splash.

The Bouncers will get a future shot at the ROH Tag Team titles as a stipulation of winning here.

– Kenny King joined Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana on commentary for the next match.

Jay Lethal defeated Jay Briscoe

This was really good. It was a rematch from Final Battle 2015. Both received loud reactions, but Lethal got a superstar pop. Tons of streamers in the ring for him.

The two shook hands before the bell and the opening sequence saw some smooth and seamless counter-wrestling. Nothing at all felt rehearsed. These two have a unique chemistry together, and it now makes me want a best-of-three series between them instead of Lethal and Kenny King.

Briscoe got frustrated and teased using a chair. Lethal stopped the match and got on the mic to explain that Briscoe had changed since their match in 2015. He talked about the “real revolution” in wrestling and how ROH needed to get back on track and that instead of using a chair he needed to “man-up” and wrestle. The crowd was on board and so was Jay Briscoe after a moment.

Briscoe went back in the ring and they started with the fisticuffs, which I didn’t happen to see on the live stream because it kept cutting in and out again. If I didn’t happen to be in attendance I’d be here writing about the spinning ROH tribal logo.

Things heated up in and outside the ring after a few more minutes. Briscoe was bleeding above his eye but looked to be all right. Towards the end, just before Lethal would attempt a flying elbow drop from the top rope, Kenny King came to ringside to watch the match more closely and talk a bit of trash to Lethal, whom he beat on ROH TV this week in the first match of their best-of-three series.

Lethal was distracted and wasn’t able to land the elbow drop; Briscoe got his boot up, then hit a frankensteiner and a Jay Driller for a very close two. King then slid his folding chair in the ring for Briscoe to use. Briscoe considered using it but didn’t, but this cost him as he was caught with the Lethal Injection and then pinned for three.

King talked a lot of trash, but the sound on the stream cut out so I didn’t hear anything he said. Briscoe and Lethal shook hands after the match and it got a gigantic pop that you couldn’t hear on the live stream because the sound kept cutting out at key points.

ROH World Champion Matt Taven defeated Flip Gordon, Mark Haskins, and PCO in a Defy or Deny match

This was an elimination match. If Taven lost, the winner would receive a future shot at the ROH World Championship. If Taven won, the person he eliminated last would be unable to challenge for the World title for as long as Taven is champion.

ROH showed a Matt Taven promo beforehand. Ring announcer Bobby Cruise announced that due to injury Mark Haskins would not be competing because of an injury earlier in the night.

Everyone loved Gordon. People were stomping and banging the barricades for PCO when he came out. Taven got good heel heat.

After all three were in the ring, Haskins made his way out anyway, his arm in a sling, and grabbed the mic to say that he didn’t care that he wasn’t medically cleared because he desperately wanted Taven’s title. Riccaboni explained that Haskins had “signed a waiver” so that he could compete tonight. Riccaboni has been excellent at ad-libbing logical explanations on broadcasts, threading any of the bookers’ loose ends with a quick fix.

Taven was stellar in this match. He took “chickensh*t heel” to another level here, giving referee Todd Sinclair dozens of excuses on why he thought he didn’t have to get in the ring before the match was underway. Taven’s MO early on was to sneak a pin in on someone and roll out of the ring after a two count. He did this with both Gordon and Haskins. He jawjacked with the crowd a ton and even sat on a guy’s lap in the front row at one point.

PCO, Gordon, and Haskins all decided to triple-team Taven when they got him in the ring. They chopped him in the corner for a few minutes. Things then spilled to the floor and got crazy. Gordon powerbombed PCO to the floor from the apron, then Haskins did a tope suicida, followed by a huge Taven tope. The proverbial cherry on top was PCO moonsaulting himself onto the floor from the top, which garnered a massive reaction.

PCO did a double chokeslam and tombstone to all three wrestlers at one point. The Kingdom came out soon after and threw Taven a chair, but PCO grabbed it and used it on Taven instead, thus eliminating PCO from the match.

Before Taven pinned him a few minutes later, Haskins went on a last-minute tear and used a ton of power moves. He got a great reaction from the crowd.

Taven and Gordon had an exciting back and forth before Taven powerbombed Gordon through the announce table, which elicited a “holy sh*t” chant. Taven was later able to spike Gordon on his head with the Climax for the clean win. This was fantastic despite the sometimes convoluted rules of a Defy or Deny match.

After the broadcast finished, Taven got on the mic and called everyone virgins and said the next time he’s in Portland people can boo or cheer but it didn’t matter because he’s still Matt Taven.

Final thoughts —

This was a solid in-ring show with an enthusiastic crowd despite the embarrassing turnout.

Aside from a TV spot the day before, I saw zero advertisement for this card in town or on PSU’s campus. Some people even asked me what was happening at the venue before the show and had no idea it was happening, not even some of the lower echelon staff. This, plus the supposed menacing of a fan backstage by Bully Ray, could turn out to be the beginning of a very bad professional look for ROH in the coming months.

ROH War of the Worlds Grand Rapids results: Taven vs. Haskins

Posted on by Justin Knipper

ROH came to Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday night for the next of their War of the Worlds events live on the HonorClub streaming service. Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana were the announce team for the night. 

Coast 2 Coast (LSG & Shaheem Ali) defeated Karl Fredericks & Alex Coughlin

Good opener. Almost all grappling at the top of this one, all pretty good. Riccaboni mentioned Ali has been training in BJJ recently, implying he may attempt some jiu-jitsu tonight. He and LSG did some cool double-team work early on. Ali did a mini-2 Cold Scorpio splash on Coughlin. 

Fredericks has been the hot-tag guy in all of his tag matches on War of the Worlds this week. He’s very good already, but sometimes his limbs flail when he does dropkicks or power moves.

Coast to Coast won after a double-team pop-up swing-out slam. 

Women of Honor World Champion Kelly Klein defeated Stacy Shadows to retain her title

Klein offered a handshake before the match, but Shadows shoved her. Shadows is a lot bigger than Klein. They brawled outside the ring early. Klein’s matches feel a lot easier to watch when she’s able to have a more physical match, like she did tonight with Shadows. 

Shadows got great heat midway through this. She talked a lot of trash as she stomped and wailed on Klein. Klein returned the attack with a lariat. Riccaboni mentioned that Klein recently threw out the first pitch at a Cincinnati Reds game. 

Shadows completely biffed on a spot with Klein: when Klein went for a shoulder block, Shadows took a bump before they even touched. Klein was still near the ropes and Shadows was in the middle of the ring. It was really bad, but they moved right through it. The crowd didn’t totally give up on the match yet. 

Klein landed a big German suplex on Shadows. Shadows later went for a Vader Bomb but missed, so Klein used a running double knee strike to win the match. Shadows shook Klein’s hand afterwards. This could have been Klein’s best match in a long time, sans that glaring miscued botch Shadows made. 

The Allure attacked Shadows after the match and branded their logo on Shadows’ head with lipstick. Klein made the save and went after Angelina Love. Those two had a good pull-apart and the crowd started chanting “let them fight.” ROH Dojo students came out to break things up.

This was hands down the best Allure segment so far. It’s not saying much but it feels like an improvement even from a few days ago.

– Riccaboni announced that PCO would not be competing tonight. He was initially scheduled to wrestle Mark Haskins of LifeBlood but wasn’t medically cleared in storyline.

Riccaboni gave a good kayfabe explanation about why The Kingdom aren’t allowed at ringside anymore. He explained that in the past, The Kingdom could always “legally” be at ringside because they had their licenses and did their paperwork, but ROH rescinded that right, which resulted in them not being allowed at ringside for the time being. 

Dalton Castle defeated Cheeseburger and Clark Connors in a triple threat match

Heel Dalton Castle came out before Cheeseburger and Connors’ match. He said he was eating tiramisu in the back watching the show and he didn’t like what he saw in the ring. He said Connors looked like “half eaten vanilla fro-yo.” Castle said the audience deserve better and ordered the two to leave.

People started chanting for Cheeseburger. He offered Castle a chance to wrestle both of them in a three-way match. Castle said he couldn’t because he had a deviated septum and was now upset that Cheeseburger brought it up. He said they both didn’t deserve to be in the ring with him.

Cheeseburger then brought up Castle getting beat by Rush in 16 seconds at MSG last month. I guess that was all it took for Castle to agree to the match.

Castle manhandled Cheeseburger, but he and Connors were destined to mix it up. They traded really hard chops and forearms. Castle then blasted Connors in the face with a yakuza kick outside the ring, all in slacks and slip-on shoes. Castle is going out of his way to wrestle a meaner style, a little bit more intense and with less bells, whistles, and Boys. 

Connors is scary strong. He looks like he’s been wrestling for a long while. At one point, he did rolling gutwrench suplexes to Cheeseburger until Castle German suplexed both of them at the same time, similar to what Daisuke Sekimoto has been doing in Japan. 

Castle back body dropped Cheeseburger onto Connors on the floor. Connors later made a serious comeback and landed a stiff spear on Castle, then put him in the Boston crab. Cheeseburger tried chopping Connors while he sat in the submission hold, but Connors no sold it. He was eventually able to break up the attempt, but Castle made a comeback and eventually gave Cheeseburger a Bang-A-Rang to win his first match back since Madison Square Garden. 

This turned out to be pretty good. Castle looked very good in the ring, more aggressive than usual. Connors will be a superstar in a few years, that’s a no-brainer. Cheeseburger played the babyface role to a T here and added a nice high-flying flavor to the match.

The Kingdom (Matt Taven, Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan) defeated Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) & Hikuleo

Both teams talked trash in the middle of the ring before the bell. Cabana warned families watching at home to turn the volume down if the Guerrillas of Destiny are on, as they tend to curse a lot.

No one locked up for the first few minutes. They all talked trash and tagged in and out, both leaned hard into the heel vs. heel vibe. Both teams kept cheating. Hikuleo looked to be a foot taller than everyone in the ring. The crowd loved his chops and went nuts when he went after O’Ryan in his corner. 

The Kingdom came back and triple-teamed Tonga for while. Tonga used a spinning neckbreaker and was able to tag Hikuleo back in. I think Hikuleo is soon going to supersede Loa as the second best of the brothers.

When Loa and Tonga hit the Doomsday Device on O’Ryan, The Briscoes came out and walked to the ring. While Loa and Tonga got into it with The Briscoes at ringside, Marseglia passed the ROH title belt to Taven and he clocked Hikuleo with it. Marseglia scored the pin while GOD and The Briscoes brawled their way back to the dressing rooms.

The lights went out and Mark Haskins came down. He called Taven out, basically explaining how he’s upset that he couldn’t wrestle PCO for the ROH World title tonight and it’s because Taven cheated his way out of his title defense against PCO this past Thursday in Toronto.

Taven initially said no until Haskins said that when Michael Bennett and Maria Kanellis left him was when Taven lost his balls. Taven got angry and agreed to the match. This was actually an excellent segment. 

Flip Gordon defeated Rhett Titus

This match was not originally slated for tonight, but since Gordon will not be competing in the NJPW Best of the Super Juniors tournament starting next week, he appeared for ROH tonight. 

Riccaboni and Cabana talked about how Titus is going to enter the upcoming CMLL bodybuilding tournament in Mexico. He might as well, huh? Titus got in the ring and on the mic explained that he was going to show the crowd his three best poses. The lights went out before his third pose and Gordon’s music hit. 

People went pretty wild for Gordon when he came out. At one point, he skinned the cat through the middle of the ropes, then did a springboard dropkick where he somehow slipped on the top rope but still stuck the move perfectly, pretty much. Titus tapped as soon as Gordon locked on the FTF. This was fine. 

Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA & EVIL) defeated The Bouncers (Brawler Milonas & Beer City Bruiser)

To give you an idea of how over LIJ are in the United States, Colt Cabana acknowledged how the crowd was into — of all things — an arm wringer that EVIL used early on. You’re doing a good job when people “ooh” and “aah” when you do an arm wringer. 

The Bouncers offered LIJ some beers before the match. EVIL and SANADA took sips and spit beer into the big guys’ faces and the bell rang. 

The Bouncers did comedy spots early on. Milonas rubbed his butt in SANADA’s face in the corner, and later Bruiser did his “I can’t bite, I ain’t got no teeth!” spot.

SANADA locked Bruiser in an upside down Paradise Lock with some assistance from the bottom rope, then SANADA dropkicked him. LIJ hit a big double suplex onto Milonas, then used a Magic Killer on Bruiser for three. 

Tracy Williams defeated Rush, Eli Isom, and PJ Black in a four corner survival match

This was an excellent “bang-bang-bang” type of match, sequences upon sequences within sequences. The stip here was that the winner would win a future ROH World title shot.

Everyone in this match went out of their way to make this really good. Isom and Rush were really impressive together, as were Williams and Black. 

Isom is crazy good for how short a time he’s been wrestling. Rush’s rhythm in the ring is more natural when there are extra guys in the ring. 

Rush did a tope con giro onto everyone on the floor and Cabana called it as: “This is what it sounds like when bulls cry.” Rush was booed when he did his Tranquilo pose, but within 20 seconds they were chanting his name. 

PJ Black did a top rope quebrada and a springboard 450 into the ring. Williams did a jumping piledriver to Black and the crowd started chanting “this is awesome.” Rush did the Hiromu Takahashi running dropkick from the apron to the floor onto Black.

Williams and Isom had a heated exchange in the ring. Isom did a modified DDT at one time and got an extremely close two count. Williams used another piledriver for the win.

They explained on commentary that Rush sacrificed his body on the dropkick to the floor, which was why he couldn’t make it into the ring to break up Williams’ pin attempt. 

– Riccaboni and Cabana announced the very unfortunate news about legendary luchadore, Silver King, who passed away on Saturday.

ROH World Champion Matt Taven defeated Mark Haskins to retain his title

What a match. Taven tried to jump Haskins before the bell, but Haskins kicked him to the outside and dove onto him with a tope suicida. Haskins landed a stiff Penalty Kick off the apron early on.

It’s easy to forget how acrobatic Taven is. From the get-go, this was an entirely different match than the one he had with PCO on Thursday. 

Haskins dominated much of the first part of this match. Taven used rope breaks to break up a few pin attempts. Taven turned the tide and began going after Haskins’ arm. Haskins did a terrific job selling it. If you’re looking for a younger wrestler in the world that pretty closely resembles Dynamite Kid in the ring, Haskins might be that guy. 

Taven seems to always have at least a cluster of diehard fans at ROH shows. He got good heat during this match, but he also went out of his way to acknowledge his non-Melvin fans. 

Taven continued going after Haskins’ arm. He through him onto the ring entrance stage and tried to steal a countout victory, but Haskins made it in at 19. 

Taven used a tight Fujiwara armbar on Haskins until Haskins inched over to the bottom rope for a break. Haskins fought back and eventually landed a high jumping leg lariat to knock Taven into the corner. Haskins later used a bridging armbar in the center of the ring, but Taven was able to make it to the ropes. Taven did a great job of wrestling in such a way where you actually bought into an ROH newcomer like Haskins winning the title.

Taven missed a frog splash and Haskins went back to the bridging armbar, but Taven countered into a cradle pin. They traded cradles until Haskins landed a sit-out Death Valley Driver for another close two. Whenever Taven was in trouble, he’d gouge at Haskins’ eyes or do something morally questionable in the ring. 

Haskins hulked up and landed a big diving double stomp on Taven for a 2.5 count this time. When Haskins went for a Death Valley Driver on the apron, Taven somehow used a crazy looking Climax on the edge of the apron, then did Just the Tip and hit a frog splash for 2 and nine-tenths. People lost it for this fall and started chanting “R-O-H” and slamming their hands on the barricade.

Haskins was finally able to lock in the Sharpshooter on Taven, but Bully Ray walked out and started yelling at him. He said something about Haskins’ wife, which distracted Haskins and allowed Taven to low blow him, then hit another Climax for the pin. The crowd groaned and sighed. It sucked the excitement out of the room. 

I really hope the future storylines pay off. It looks like they’re going with a Kingdom vs. LifeBlood program, with Tracy Williams getting a title shot soon after his win tonight. If there’s no payoff, or if it’s a flop, ROH may have just let lightning in a bottle slip through their fingers. 

Taven got on the mic after the match and cut a promo, saying that if the crowd thinks he sucks so much, then what do they think about all the people he beat? He jaw-jacked for another minute until PCO came out and destroyed Taven with a rebound tombstone piledriver and a “PCO-sault.”

Aside from the schmozzy finish, this was quite possibly one of the better matches of the year so far. Haskins was spectacular. Even more impressive is that Taven worked a tag match earlier and had a wild brawl of a bout with PCO days before, then had this match. If ROH gives out awards to their employees at the end of the year, I think Taven might be up for company MVP.

– Kenny King came out with ring announcer Amy Rose, who has been his handler this week. He did his blind gimmick again. He said he has super-senses now ever since Great Muta misted him at MSG, and tonight he could sense that Bobby Cruise was wearing blue underwear. Yeah. King joined the commentary team when he finished.

Satoshi Kojima, Yuji Nagata, Hirooki Goto, Jay Lethal & Jeff Cobb defeated Bully Ray, Shane Taylor, Silas Young & The Briscoes

This was a good fan-service match, like something you’d see on NJPW World, not HonorClub. It had the same feel and followed a similar layout. 

Fans threw streamers into the crowd during the entrances. Lethal and Jay Briscoe were in first and had a solid opening exchange. Goto and Mark Briscoe were in next. 

Lots of people chanted for Kojima when he tagged in. Bully Ray screamed at him for a while until Kojima screamed “SHUT UP!” back at Ray. Ray has the loudest voice in pro wrestling, maybe. It’s a blessing. 

Nagata tagged in and Ray tagged out to Young. It was pretty similar to how they worked a few nights earlier on the tour. 

The action in this was hard-hitting, slow and steady. Seeing Taylor in the ring next to Bully Ray makes it easy to see that, in many ways, Taylor is like a modern version of Bully Ray. Both are aggressive and loud, they’re roughly the same size, and they seem to be able to work with anyone in a variety of styles. 

Kojima and Ray got into it again later on in the match. Ray never seems lost when he’s in the ring with foreigners, which might be Goto’s big issue, always good but always a bit hesitant in the ring out of his comfort zone. 

The heels cornered Cobb and worked him over. After a couple of minutes, Cobb was able to deadlift Taylor with a German suplex. He tagged out to house-of-fire Kojima, who landed a massive Koji Cutter on Ray for two. 

Nagata took out Young with an exploder suplex. Nagata was then taken out by Jay Briscoe with a dropkick, and Jay was taken out by Cobb with a spinning back suplex. Ray snuck in the ring and landed a big back suplex of his own on Cobb. 

Mark Haskins ran out to the ring at this point and stole Ray’s chain. Cobb then did a big tope con giro to the floor, and Kojima landed a lariat on Ray to win the match. 

This was good and all, though it’s a shame that the World title match didn’t go on last instead. 

Final thoughts — 

This was a very watchable show, but the shining star match was Taven vs. Haskins, for sure. The finish was what it was, and it might have done more harm than good to both Haskins and Taven. That’s something we can only judge when ROH is given a fair chance to tell the rest of their story.

The other standout from tonight was the four corner survival match. Rush shined, PJ Black has been on a roll since last month pretty much, and both Williams and Isom looked better than ever. 

ROH War of the Worlds Buffalo results: Three title matches

Posted on by Justin Knipper

ROH was in Buffalo, New York on Wednesday for the first show of this year’s War of the Worlds tour. Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana were the announce team for the night. 

PJ Black defeated Alex Coughlin 

Good opener. ROH is in the middle of pushing Black now. He scored a win on this week’s TV over Eli Isom, and the narrative they’re pushing is that he has changed his devious ways and is more honorable now. Coughlin is one of the NJPW LA Dojo trainees under Katsuyori Shibata.

The two shook hands before the match. The crowd quietly studied the two as they traded submissions in the beginning. Black used a number of more lucha-infused subs, while Coughlin’s offense echoed what we often see in NJPW’s Young Lions matches these days.

The audience began to heat up when Coughlin and Black started exchanging hard chops. Coughlin used a deadlift gut wrench suplex. More hard chops and strikes after this. Coughlin’s chest looked pretty bloodied up by the end.

Black landed Wildness, a brutal-looking moonsault stomp from the top rope, to win the match. It wasn’t a mat classic or anything, but it was a solid opener. 

Women of Honor World Champion Kelly Klein defeated Kate Carney to retain her title

Carney is from Buffalo and nicknamed “ The Sparkle Hunter.” Klein got some pyro during her entrance.

Once the match started, the lights went out and the Allure faction came out. As their music played, they all showed off and did poses on the stage, shaking their rear ends and such, then walked over to join Riccaboni and Cabana on commentary. This was all after the bell had rung.

The crowd would sometimes get into the match when Carney, the hometown heroine, showed some offense. Angelina Love and Velvet Sky took over commentary and plugged their Instagram a bunch. Cabana explained to the ladies that his mother wants him to marry a nice Jewish woman someday. If you haven’t noticed yet, not much happened in the match. A few moments later, Klein hit K-Power for the win. Love called it boring. Gee, I wonder why?

Klein challenged Allure after the match and they had a 30-second posedown, with Klein holding her belt in the air and the Allure not doing much on the apron. It was all very WWE/TNA.

Rhett Titus came out to flex and pose before joining the announce team for the next match. If Titus wrestled in the 1940s, he’d be disqualified on the spot for being too greased up.

The Kingdom (TK O’Ryan & Vinny Marseglia) defeated Karl Fredericks & Clark Connors

Fredericks and Connors are two other NJPW LA dojo trainees. They’re built like football players. 

O’Ryan put Connors in a headlock early on and yelled “Yeah, wrestle that!” to the crowd. No one reacted. O’Ryan chopped Connors a few times and Connors no-sold it. Fredericks tagged in and worked over Marseglia with submissions and hard strikes for a while. The Kingdom made a comeback midway through and used some neat double-team combos, like a senton plus leg drop deal onto Connors.

Marseglia talked trash to Connors as he sat in the corner. I’m not sure if Marseglia was really loud or the crowd was just really quiet. Fredericks got a hot tag in later on in the match and landed a huge dropkick on Marseglia. 

The Kingdom did House of a Thousand Horses (not “Corpses,” like the movie) to both Lions and picked up the win.

The main takeaway from this match is that Fredericks and Connors are already really, really good, like scary good. The crowd almost bought into them winning at one point when Fredericks locked on a Boston crab and kept no-selling Marseglia’s slaps to the face. It was almost strange to watch them in the ring with the Kingdom since they wrestle such a lighter-looking style. 

Shane Taylor defeated Hikuleo

Short but not bad at all. Hikuleo offered a handshake beforehand but Taylor spit in his hand, so Hikuleo went after Taylor with a barrage of kicks and back elbows.

Early on, when Taylor was on the top rope, Hikuleo used a running yakuza kick to Taylor’s face, which seemed to land flush. His foot had to be at least 9 or 10 feet in the air. The crowd started slamming their hands against the barricade after this.

Taylor is a great heel. His jaw-jacking in the ring sounds natural, never forced or awkward. He bullied Hikuleo for a bit until Hikuleo landed a huge Samoan drop (Tongan drop?). Just a few moments later, after a big Hikuleo lariat, Taylor used a running Greetings from 216 (a riff on Bam Bam Bigelow’s Greetings from Asbury Park, a fire-thunder driver) for the win.

Hikuleo must have trained his ass off when he was injured last year because he’s improved greatly, and in a short amount of time. 

Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL & SANADA) defeated LifeBlood (Mark Haskins & Tracy Williams) 

Very good match. There were loud EVIL chants before the bell and during the match. Like, really loud ones. Williams still has his shoulder brace on. They exchanged forearms at the start.

SANADA might have gotten even louder chants when he got into the ring — total star treatment tonight from the Buffalo crowd. He and Haskins were in next and had a killer forearm exchange. SANADA then put both LifeBlood members in the Paradise Lock and literally dropkicked their asses. The crowd absolutely loved this.

Haskins and Williams recovered quickly. They wore EVIL down with double-team attacks. LIJ were treated like the faces here even though LifeBlood have been positioned as primo ROH babyfaces. That’s more on the booking than on those two, who were very good in this. Both are underrated at the moment, particularly Haskins.

SANADA and Williams got in a few moments later and exchanged stinging chops. Williams hulked up and ripped off his shoulder brace, but SANADA got the better of the exchange. EVIL continued the chopping, but Williams was able to land a diving Rocker Dropper from the second rope. He tagged Haskins in and tore things up, topping off an offensive sequence with a couple of tope suicidas to the floor. The crowd was way into this.

Williams landed a D-Lo Brown style frog splash for two on SANADA. EVIL found his way back in, and after a few more of his moves, got even more chants. He even mean-mugged the ringside camera: “Everything is EVIL,” the Big Purple Machine said. 

Haskins landed a sit-out Death Valley Driver for two. Williams and SANADA were in next and exchanged hard forearms. The last few minutes were hot after this. Haskins used a running, flying knee off the apron onto EVIL, then Williams put SANADA in an ankle lock. SANADA fought back and whipped himself out of the lock and Williams into the ropes, where Williams’ head met a chair, courtesy of EVIL on the outside. This was booed loudly — there were loud sighs of disappointment in the context of the match. Haskins broke up the pin, but then LIJ used two Magic Killers on both Haskins and later Williams for the win.

Riccaboni announced that regardless of the outcome of their title match with Jonathan Gresham & Jay Lethal tonight, Guerrillas of Destiny will face the Briscoe Brothers this weekend at the War of the Worlds TV tapings in Villa Park, Illinois.

Rush defeated Silas Young

Dalton Castle came out beforehand and sat at the timekeeper’s table for this. Young trash talked pretty much every fan in the front rows before the match. He looked like he was about to challenge Rush to a test of strength, but Rush shoved him into the ropes and gave him a shoulder block, then did a shotgun dropkick that launched Young to the floor.

The two brawled around the ring for a bit, with Young later getting the better of the fisticuffs. He then beat on Rush for a few minutes longer, both inside and outside the ring. Young hung a folding chair around Rush’s neck and slammed him into the ring post.

Rush was out for a short bit but then fired up, apparently totally fine after having his neck Pillmanized, and went on to beat the crap out of Young outside the ring. He even took a trash can and threw it at Young.

Rush hit a really hard corner dropkick, the Bull’s Horns, for the win. Castle got on the apron and he and Rush stared each other down. They seem to be continuing the program between these two guys into the near future. 

ROH Six-Man Tag Team Champions Villain Enterprises (Marty Scurll, Brody King & PCO) defeated Satoshi Kojima, Yuji Nagata & Jeff Cobb to retain their titles

Matt Taven joined Riccaboni and Cabana on commentary. PCO and Scurll received the loudest chants before the match, though the audience seemed to love everyone.

King and Cobb had a pretty insane exchange at the beginning. They were moving like junior heavyweights — drop down, leapfrog, do it again, all of that business. King used a frankensteiner to cap the sequence, which led to a giant “holy sh*t” chants from the crowd.

PCO and Kojima had a nice exchange that lit up the crowd. People love PCO. He did a tope suicida through the ropes early on. 

Nagata and Kojima worked over PCO’s arm for a long portion of the match, mainly using arm breakers and armlock submissions. PCO was finally able to make a comeback and used his good arm to chokeslam Cobb and tag out to Scurll.

Scurll, who looks to be wearing new custom white wrestling boots, briefly cleaned house. King did a big tope con giro to the floor, then Scurll helped launch PCO onto the opposite team with a back body drop to the floor. 

Villain Enterprises went on a tear next and did tons of innovative power moves. Cobb returned the attack with a massive *double* back suplex to Scurll and King. Nagata put the boots to Scurll next, then locked him into a the shiro-me (“white eyes”) sitting armbreaker submission until King and PCO came to the ring to break things up.

Nagata later used an exploder from the top rope for a close two count. Scurll attempted a chicken wing but ate an enzuigiri from Nagata. There were more chants for PCO with “this is awesome” chants peppered in. Kojima and PCO exchanged machine gun chops. 

The match ended hot after a monstrous moonsault from PCO. This was a really good fan-service match. Taven was pretty funny on commentary. He’ll face PCO for the ROH World title on Thursday night in Toronto. 

Vinny Marseglia and TK O’Ryan came out and attacked Villain Enterprises afterwards. Taven came down from the announce booth and hit PCO with his belt, but PCO sat up like the Undertaker, which scared Taven out of the ring.

ROH Tag Team Champions Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) defeated Jonathan Gresham & Jay Lethal to retain their titles

Kenny King came out with sunglasses and a walking stick. He was pretending to be blind still from getting misted by the Great Muta at the MSG show, after the Honor Rumble. 

GOD jumped Gresham and Lethal before the bell. Who are they, Suzuki-gun? Gresham and Lethal quickly returned the attack with simultaneous suicide dives through the ropes. Gresham then hit a big crossbody block onto Tonga for two. Gresham and Lethal wrestled like they’ve been tagging for years in this. They did a very cool enzuigiri-dragon screw leg whip double-team spot to Tonga later on.

Tonga wrestled most of the bout for his team. He cursed kind of a lot during the match — a couple F-bombs spewed over a somewhat silent crowd. Riccaboni’s response: “That’s a fine.” 

The crowd would almost always heat up when either Lethal or Gresham were on the offensive in the ring. When Lethal landed a diving elbow drop, the still “blind” King asked, “Was that a shooting star press?”

This had a nice finish: when Loa distracted the refs when he tried bringing the tag titles into the ring, he tossed one of the belts to Tonga, who then cracked Lethal in the back of the head with it as he went for the Lethal Injection. When Tonga went for a cutter on Gresham, Gresham reversed it into a German suplex for a very close two. Tonga then finally landed the cutter, spiking Gresham onto his face and neck for the clean-ish pin.

The Briscoes came out afterwards and Jay Briscoe cut a promo on GOD, saying this was their first and last successful ROH Tag Team title defense. The teams did a good pull apart with the NJPW Young Lions breaking things up in the ring.

Jay got hardway blood over his right eyebrow during the pull apart and got on the mic again, swore a lot more, and claimed that they were going to run circles around GOD this Sunday.

Flip Gordon defeated Bandido

Williams and Haskins came out with fellow LifeBlood member Bandido for this match.

They started out slow, building the match with quicker and quicker exchanges and spot sequences. The crowd chanted “this is wrestling.” They were pretty split between both wrestlers, with a slight majority chanting for Bandido at first. Gordon skinned the cat but also turned it into a basement dropkick into the corner, if that makes sense.

The two went out of their way to move methodically, deliberately. Bandido later did a tornillo in the ring, then a tope con giro to the floor. Later on, Bandido hit a basement dropkick to Gordon’s knee while it was draped over the ropes. 

It’s easy to forget how strong Bandido is. He did a one-handed press slam to Gordon at one point, which looked very impressive. No wonder Gordon has 20 abs now. For the record, Bandido didn’t actually slam Gordon, he just held him in the air for a while until Gordon escaped. 

The match moved back down to the floor a little later. Gordon was selling his knee hard at this point. Bandido was able to muster up the strength to pull off a reverse frankensteiner on the floor. After this they teased a double countout until the count of 19, something I’ve seen too much of these days, mostly abused in NJPW matches. It worked for these two tonight, though.

After trading chops and a few other strikes, Gordon put Bandido into a sleeper hold for a few minutes. The crowd didn’t really respond to this, though they did respond to Bandido’s fallaway slam moonsault from the top rope, which got a quick two count. Gordon used the Star Spangled Stunner, a springboard spinning stunner, for a another close two.

Bandido hit the X Knee, but Gordon connected with a superkick. Gordon picked up Bandido and hit the Flip 5, an F5 turned into a cutter, for the win.

Haskins got in the ring and told Gordon that he had a hell of a match. He put him over huge and offered him a spot in LifeBlood. He told Gordon to think about it and get back to them while he’s at the Best of the Super Juniors tournament next month. The crowd was kind of mixed on this but mostly sounded to be into it. 

I’m shocked to say this but this wasn’t all that good. I’m not saying it was bad, since on paper you’d think it’d be wild, and at times it was, but I don’t think the crowd expected these two to rein it in so much tonight. The crowd must have had higher hopes. I’m not sure what happened here. The highlight was Bandido’s crazy one-armed press slam spot. 

Final thoughts —

I’m glad this felt like more than a house show, which some of the Honor Club events often feel like. It feels like the beginning of a new ROH season, with new faces, new pushes, and more story development. The best match was easily LifeBlood vs. LIJ, while the worst was the dud of a WOH Championship match that was mostly ruined on commentary. 

The War of the Worlds Tour continues tomorrow night on HonorClub from Toronto, Ontario, Canada with ROH World Champion Matt Taven putting his title on the line versus the “Not Human” PCO.

ROH Masters of the Craft results: Two title matches

Posted on by Justin Knipper

ROH was in Columbus, Ohio on Sunday for their Masters of the Craft special broadcast live on the HonorClub streaming service. Ian Riccaboni, Colt Cabana, and NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis were the announce team for the night. 

ROH TV Champion Jeff Cobb defeated Rhett Titus in a non-title match

Titus flexed and posed before the match. The announce team used the word “striations” very much with regard to Mr. Titus. 

They did some light comedy chain wrestling at the beginning. Titus kept slipping out of Cobb’s holds and the announcers said it was because he had so much baby oil on his body. At one point, Titus tried a tope to the floor and landed very close to head-first onto the concrete. Yikes.

Titus hammered down on Cobb for a few minutes inside the ring until Cobb came back with a huge overhead belly-to-belly suplex. He later used a delayed superplex followed by a standing moonsault for a two-count. At some point during this part of the match, Cobb’s nose looked to be busted open hardway. 

Titus used a top rope X-Factor at one point. Cobb did a new move, or rather combination of moves: two floatover gutwrench suplexes into one floatover piledriver. He followed up with the Tour of the Islands for the win. 

This was a decent opener. Both looked good, but Cobb, as usual, looked especially impressive. He had a rock-solid response from this crowd, too. 

Jenny Rose defeated Holidead

Before the match, Riccaboni brought up how Holidead was trained by Gangrel. She bullied Rose around at the beginning of the match — good powerhouse heeling around on her part. 

As Rose picked up some steam and knocked Holidead out of the ring, the Allüre (Mandy Leon, Angelina Love, and Velvet Sky) came out from the back and distracted her. They came out with selfie sticks and sat ringside. They’re doing a mean girls gimmick that feels fifteen years out of date. They are being called “influencers” by the announce team. 

Nick Aldis made a great “Glengarry, Glen Ross” reference during one of the slower parts of the match (“Always Be Closing”). Rose eventually made a final comeback and used a uranage for the seemingly out-of-nowhere win. 

This wasn’t great. What momentum the match might have built to was killed by the Allüre angle, but the crowd seemed satisfied nonetheless. 

Eight-man tag match: Shane Taylor, Silas Young & The Briscoes (Jay & Mark) defeated Coast 2 Coast (Shaheem Ali & LSG) & The Bouncers (Brian Milonas & Beer City Bruiser) 

This was better than you’d think it’d be. Ali and Young were first in and chain wrestled. Jay Briscoe was next in and he and Ali traded blows. LSG and Taylor had a good exchange that ended in LSG literally flying into Taylor and bouncing off his body.

Milonas and Taylor had a shoulder block contest which the crowd was pretty into. The match devolved into a massive brawl that spilled out around the ring. 

Mark Briscoe and LSG had a nice exchange back in the ring. Beer City Bruiser and Young had a few exchanges as a part of some angle the two have going. 

They did a sequence of dives at the end that had the crowd going pretty crazy. Taylor did a running cannonball off the apron, LSG and Ali did a pair of dives, Mark Briscoe did a corkscrew senton from the top to the floor, and finally Bruiser hit a plancha from the top to the floor that Cabana politely called as follows: “It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective!”

After more madness both in and out of the ring, Taylor was able to land a big Fire Thunder Driver that they’re calling Greetings from 216 on LSG for the win.

Again, this was better than you might think it’d be from looking at the lineup on paper. Milonas and Taylor had a few good big man exchanges that might lead to something down the road. Coast 2 Coast shined brighter than usual here tonight, as well.

So Aldis kept poking fun at Cabana on commentary from the beginning of the broadcast, all for beating him in a match a year ago in China. After the tag match, Cabana got on the mic and challenged Aldis to a rematch on this show. Aldis accepted but was indignant about it and stormed to the back after the challenge. He assured Cabana he’d “stretch” him. 

Rush defeated Soberano Jr.

Riccaboni talked about how Soberano is the son of CMLL’s Euforia. He’s currently CMLL Welterweight Champion. Compared to a year or two ago, Soberano has noticeably improved. He used an awesome tornillo on Rush early on in this one for two. 

Rush came back quickly and did a few of his signature spots to Soberano — the fake-out dropkick into kick-in-face into Tranquilo pose, etc. He later took the match to the floor and whipped Soberano from corner to corner, shoving him into the barricades. 

It was only moments later that Rush had Soberano lying prone in the corner ready to take the Bull’s Horn basement dropkick to the face. Rush hit it and grabbed the quick and dominant win. It seems like ROH are booking Rush in short squashes to build him for something much bigger this summer. 

Four-way match: Bandido defeated PJ Black, Caristico, and Flip Gordon

Crazy match. Caprice Coleman joined Riccaboni on commentary for this one. Riccaboni did a nice rundown of Caristico’s career in Mexico before the bout. 

Bandido and Gordon got the loudest reactions upon their entrances. Crazy to think Bandido is getting twice the reaction Caristico gets these days considering how popular Caristico used to be.

Gordon has what looks to be a 20-pack now. Looking at him just a year ago to now is wild, a pretty crazy transformation. He was really good in this match. 

It was fast action in this from the start, as you might imagine. Caristico and Bandido were pretty amazing together, as were Bandido and Flip Gordon. Those were the especially good parts of this match. The crowd treats Bandido and Gordon like total superstars already. 

PJ Black was hanging in a Tree of Woe while Bandido attempted to superplex Caristico when he sat up and German suplexed Bandido, who in turn superplexed Caristico. Whew. 

The match was filled with lots of innovative stuff, really cool flying, though there were a few obviously botched moments, like when Caristico slipped off the ropes, or when Black went to do some double lucha-style submission to two guys but collapsed. Thankfully the crowd stuck with everything, and since there were so many moving parts in this match it was easy to forget. Bandido and Caristico did multiple dives to the floor just after this. 

In what will surely be in GIF form this week, Flip Gordon did a tope con giro from the ring over the barrier into the upper level of the crowd onto all three opponents. He launched himself really, really far. 

The finish saw Black attempt an O’Connor Roll on Gordon, but Bandido swooped in and used his slingshot German suplex on both Black and Gordon, pinning Black in the process. 

Huge reaction from the crowd after this. They cheered everyone in the match separately, but for some reason the ring announcer gave a special instruction to the crowd to thank the “CMLL Legend” Caristico. Very good match with Bandido and Gordon looking especially impressive. 

30-Minute Iron Man tag team match: Jonathan Gresham & Jay Lethal defeated LifeBlood (Mark Haskins & Tracy Williams) (2–1)

Kenny King joined the announce team for this. King sold Great Muta’s mist he got in the eyes at G1 Supercard. He wore sunglasses and came out with a cane and acted like he was blind. He rambled a lot before the match started.

The winners of this match will face IWGP & ROH World Tag Team Champions Guerrillas of Destiny in Buffalo, NY.

Jay Lethal was loudly over with the crowd. Williams had great grappling sequences with both Gresham and Lethal. At one point, Lethal ordered Haskins to tag Williams back into the ring to keep wrestling. 

The ring announcer gave the time at five-minute intervals during this match, unlike what they did during Lethal and Matt Taven’s 60-minute draw last month. 

Haskins and Gresham exchanged really hard chops and kicks. LifeBlood isolated Gresham on their side of the ring for a while. Both Williams and Haskins did some interesting catch submissions that worked over Gresham’s shoulder and taped-up arm. 

Every few minutes ROH would display a small scoreboard in the bottom right corner of the screen. Jay Lethal made his way back into the ring at around 11 minutes into the match to bail Gresham out. The two then started working over Williams’ knee, with Gresham using some unique figure-four variations. 

Later, Lethal put Williams in a traditional figure-four leg lock and Williams seemed close to tapping before grabbing the bottom ropes for the break. Williams then connected with a diving rocker dropper from the second rope onto Lethal and was then able to tag out to a fired up Haskins, who used a brutal looking double arm breaker submission on Gresham for a close submission victory until Gresham caught the ropes with his ankles.

Haskins dove onto both Gresham and Lethal outside the ring, then used a pumphandle driver for two. Minutes later, Haskins put Gresham in a Sharpshooter that Caprice Coleman put over as “the deepest Sharpshooter in professional wrestling.” Whatever works. It was around 20 minutes into the match when LifeBlood went up 1-0.

Williams and Lethal kicked off the second fall and exchanged stiff forearms and chops. LifeBlood did a suplex into an atomic drop on Lethal for two. I’d never seen that one before. 

A few minutes later, Lethal and Haskins exchanged suplex attempts. LifeBlood double-teamed Lethal while Gresham sold on outside the ring. Gresham made his way back into the match, though, and was able to catch Williams mid-air than German suplex him. With under five minutes to go, Lethal launched Gresham into Williams to deliver a big Cornette Cutter to even the match score to 1-1. 

LifeBlood hit their signature moves and looked like they were about to get a double tap until Lethal and Williams spilled out of the ring. While Haskins had Gresham in another Sharpshooter, Gresham rolled Haskins up and scored another quick win, his team now up 2-1.

The last few minutes consisted of Haskins using a number of leg locks on Gresham until Lethal could make the save, tagging Gresham discretely and landing a big diving elbow drop for a close two. The teams brawled until the time limit ran out; Lethal and Gresham won, 2-1. They will face Guerrillas of Destiny in Buffalo, NY soon for the double tag titles. 

Solid match that flew by. It didn’t feel like 30-minutes at all. Lethal is a master at pacing, apparently, like Keiji Muto or something. Hard-hitting with lots of action, well balanced. Not perfect, but very good. The crowd was in and out during it but was generally on board.

I think this was also good for LifeBlood, who actually needed more exposure. The longer nature of the match at hand gave them a chance to show the crowd that they are, in fact, very good wrestlers. Haskins is especially good. 

NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship match: Colt Cabana defeated Nick Aldis (w/ Kamille) by DQ

It was announced as a title match just as Cabana made his way to the ring. Sounds like there was some miscommunication as Riccaboni announced that the match was for the NWA title, but then Cabana got on the mic and did an angle about how they hadn’t announced it yet. Riccaboni saved it by saying Cabana was “making sure” it was for the championship. 

They did some smooth chain wrestling at the top of the match. These two complement each other physically, they’re just about the same height and around the same weight. The crowd was pretty loudly behind Cabana for this match. 

Cabana missed a splash off the ropes when Aldis got his knees up. Cabana was able to counter back with the Billy Goat’s Curse submission; Aldis grabbed the ropes for a break. 

Aldis later landed a tombstone and a big diving elbow drop for a late-match two count. Cabana returned with a big quebrada onto Aldis for two. The crowd was into this.

Right as this happened, Marty Scurll ran to the ring and stole the NWA title. Kamille got in his face and Aldis blindsided him. Cabana then dropkicked Aldis but knocked him into Scurll. Scurll and Cabana then started jawjacking and getting into it physically, causing the ref to call the match as a DQ in favor of Cabana, who won, though Aldis retained.

Scurll smashed the NWA title over Aldis’ face after to build for their match at the Crockett Cup event on April 27, which will also be on Honor Club. 

Dalton Castle came to the ring next. People still cheered him despite turning against The Boys at the MSG show last week. He walked around the ring and through the crowd with a mic and teased saying something but didn’t. He smirked and walked to the back. That’s it. People still chanted his name after he was gone. 

ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship match: Villain Enterprises (Marty Scurll, Brody King & PCO) defeated The Kingdom (ROH World Champion Matt Taven, Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan) in a Columbus Street Fight to retain their titles

Chaotic brawl that went all over the place. Scurll got on the mic and said since they had done this match so many times before, tonight they’ll make it interesting and make the match a Columbus Street Fight. The Kingdom didn’t hesitate to agree and the teams brawled as the bell rang.

Brody King and PCO did tope con giros at the beginning of the match. King and PCO have such unique and distinct charisma. A few minutes later, the chairs were brought in. There were four or five chairs in the ring at one point and they did a series of chair spots. Scurll sat and flexed on the chairs and probably got the biggest pop of that section.

Later, Marseglia and O’Ryan superplexed 51-year old PCO onto about five of the aforementioned folding chairs inside the ring, which was followed by a “holy sh*t” chant from the crowd.

The crowd then chanted for tables. Marseglia and O’Ryan argued over whether to use a table or not and Taven tried to mediate — but Scurll and King caught them and tossed them back into the ring. Scurll and King did some cool double-team moves together. 

There was a lot of stalling as the Kingdom set a table up in the corner of the ring. King later used the table by putting Matt Taven through it with a Death Valley Driver. Scurll snapped Taven’s fingers after this.

Marseglia kept acting like he wanted to pull out more tables from under the ring. The teams spilled back to the floor and later King gave Marseglia a big lariat on the entrance stage. 

O’Ryan was on the top rope going for something when Scurll snapped fingers on both of O’Ryan’s hands, then spit in his face until O’Ryan lost his balance and fell through a few tables. Marseglia did an Acid Drop from the apron to the floor, then a somersault senton through a table to King near the announce table. Carnage and craziness all over the place. 

In the ring, Taven gave PCO a low blow and hit the Climax on him, but Scurll made the save. Taven screamed about how he’s so sick of Scurll and called him a Melvin. He did Just the Tip, the running knee, then kept telling Scurll to get up so that he could hit him with the ROH belt.

Instead, PCO out of nowhere got up like Frankenstein and hit Taven with the belt. PCO then hit his monstrous moonsault on Taven to pin the current ROH World Champion only one week after he won the title. The announcers put this over huge and were screaming their heads off. 

The show’s final shot was of PCO holding not just his ROH Six-Man title but also the ROH World title over a prone Matt Taven. Let’s see if this leads to a title shot for PCO in the next few months. 

ROH 17th Anniversary PPV live results: Jay Lethal vs. Matt Taven

Posted on by Justin Knipper

Ring of Honor’s 17th Anniversary pay-per-view takes place at Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall in Las Vegas tonight. 

In the main event, reigning ROH World Champion Jay Lethal defends his title against self-proclaimed “Real World Champion” Matt Taven. ROH TV Champion Jeff Cobb also finally defends his title in a one-on-one match against Shane Taylor.

In a match for the ROH Tag Team titles, The Briscoe Brothers (Jay & Mark) take on Villain Enterprises (PCO & Brody King). The winners will face IWGP Tag Team Champions Guerrillas of Destiny at G1 Supercard in New York City on Saturday, April 6.

Marty Scurll will challenge for the ROH World title at G1 Supercard. Tonight, Scurll faces Kenny King.

Recently-crowned Women of Honor Champion Mayu Iwatani defends her title in a rematch with Kelly Klein tonight. Also on the card: Bandido vs. Rush, LifeBlood’s Mark Haskins & Tracy Williams vs. The Kingdom’s Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan, and Jonathan Gresham vs. Silas Young.

Our coverage begins at 9 p.m. Eastern time.

**********

Show recap:

With the G1 Supercard only a few weeks away, the booking on this show was interesting to say the least. The first half was good, even great at times, though the seemingly last-minute booking of the Heavyweight Title match threw the latter half of the show through an odd loop.

The show opened with a promo of Matt Taven tweaking out over not being recognized as the ROH World Heavyweight champion. The production team used special effects on Taven’s face to amp up his mania. 

Ian Riccaboni was on commentary tonight alongside Caprice Coleman and NWA World Heavyweight champion Nick Aldis (with Kamille).

Marty Scurll defeated Kenny King

This was a solid opening match, and one of the best I’ve seen Kenny King in maybe ever. 

A young guy dressed like Marty Scurll followed Kenny King out to the ring during his entrance. Scurll himself came out to a very loud reaction. 

Scurll dashed at King out of the gate and knocked King out of the ring. He ran over to the other side of the ring and superkicked his doppleganger. The crowd sounded to be very on board with this match.

King returned Scurll’s initial attack with an enzugiri. He got great heel heat for much of this. After a few minutes, King missed a tornillo to the floor and Scurll used a tornado DDT from the apron to the floor. It looked excellent and the crowd got really excited about it. 

Nick Aldis was good on commentary here and is noticeably improving from broadcast to broadcast. He adds a nice Solie-esque legitimacy to the match and puts over the “sport” of the match in a way that never feels corny.

King used a big spinebuster on Scurll. The momentum shifted constantly in this one, very quick pace throughout. The crowd was consistently behind the match and Scurll specifically; at one point they began chanting “break his fingers.”

Scurll used a floatover superplex on King, though King reversed the floatover part of the sequence with a Royal Flush. The two were down for a few moments, though when King was able to get back up he grabbed a chair and brought it into the ring. As referee Paul Turner and King had a tug-of-war for the chair, Scurll grabbed his umbrella behind Turner’s back and was able to pop King in the face with the butt of it and score the pin.

ROH World TV Title match: Jeff Cobb (c) defeated Shane Taylor

Excellent match. The pace and athletics both showed in this one was unreal, as they pretty much wrestled like 220-pounders throughout. Crazy. These two need to wrestle each other more often. 

Cobb wore a shiny new black and gold singlet for tonight’s title defense. The two went at each other hard from the bell, exchanging elbows. Cobb used a back suplex on Taylor, who no sold it. Cobb used a picture-perfect dropkick early on, though Taylor himself was able to return quickly with brutal chops. 

Taylor did a somersault senton off the apron to the floor onto Cobb. It wasn’t pretty, but at his size the fact that he pulled it off was amazing in itself. 

The pace these two were wrestling at was astounding, and they weren’t far behind the tempo that Marty Scurll and Kenny King were at just minutes before.

The crowd lost it when Cobb used a stalling deadlift pump-handle suplex. Later, Cobb went so hard on a lariat to Taylor that he ended up sliding face-first through the first rope to the floor.

Cobb pushed the pace nonstop in this with jumping elbows, more dropkicks, and a standing moonsault. The crowd was chanting “this is awesome” after a power sequence from Cobb.

Taylor came back with a huge spinebuster, a uranage and a splash from the second turnbuckle. As I mentioned, Taylor’s execution isn’t always pretty but he essentially went move-for-move with Cobb here, plus played heel very well.  

Taylor used a Canadian Destroyer—that’s right—on Cobb, for a 2.9 count which was followed up with a “holy shit” and “both these guys” chant. Cobb came back quickly and used two Tour of the Islands on Taylor for the win. Everyone in the building seemed borderline dumbfounded by what they just saw. 

Women of Honor Championship match: Mayu Iwatani (w/ Sumie Sakai) defeated Kelly Klein

These two went much harder on each other than in their match from last month. The heat was better tonight, the drama, too, though it was a tad sloppy at times, though a good match, nonetheless. 

Iwatani and Klein shook hands before the match. Klein was aggressive from the get, mostly brawling, using lots of elbows and knee strikes. Iwatani fired back with two slingblades followed by a great Northern Lights suplex with a single-leg hook.

Sumie Sakai was loud in her cheerleading outside the ring; you could clearly hear her screaming “Ike! Ike!” or “Go! Go!” at Iwatani, adding a bit of extra drama to the match. 

The two traded German suplexes but Klein’s German was absolutely brutal, like something you’d see from Steve Williams in the 90s, drilling Iwatani onto her neck. Iwatani seemed to be fine though and came back with a moonsault. She went for another moonsault but Klein put her knees up and started pounding on Iwatani and pulling her hair. 

The match ended seemingly out of nowhere with Iwatani using an inside cradle on Klein for the win. Again, a good match that was a bit short and sometimes sloppy. Considering the booking here, it seems like the blowoff for these two might happen next month at MSG.

ROH World Heavyweight Title match: Jay Lethal (c) and Matt Taven went to a 60-minute time limit draw. 

The crowd, nor myself, expected this result. It was also much hotter than I expected it to be, and it seems to have been a big turning point for Matt Taven with regard to his relationship to the ROH crowd. He was really quite popular tonight. 

The in-ring work was more solid than flashy, methodical, like most of Lethal’s matches lately, giving the match a meaningful world heavyweight flavor, but the last few minutes or so were fun to watch on television as the crowd really loved it and didn’t know what to expect.

Matt Taven cut a promo in the ring and called people melvins before the match. Jay Lethal was pretty over with this crowd, as well. This match, like the three that came before it, started with action as soon as the bell rang. 

We started with a bit of intense back-and-forth  over the course of the first few minutes, textbook and clinical, with both wrestlers looking strong, both with obvious conviction and intent, always tethered to the contextual realism inside the ring a la Bret Hart or someone with a similar style.

There were actually a smattering of chants for Taven as this match progressed. Neither wrestler seemed to dominate for more than a few minutes, and this allowed both men to look strong, to never really lose face.

At one point Lethal went for Lethal Injection but Taven blocked it and turned Lethal inside-out with a spinning roundhouse kick. Lethal was eventually able to return the attack and began working over Taven’s back. 

At around this point is where the pace slowed but the two never lost the crowd. Lethal dumped Taven, now selling his left knee, to the outside, and used his signature sequence of four tope suicidas. 

It should be noted that Aldis was more in character on commentary during this match compared to the others, mostly harping on Lethal and referee Todd Sinclair throughout. 

Taven slowed the pace down quite a bit after the topes with a few longer submission spots.  At one point the two had a standing face-off and Lethal did a Shibata-headbutt that popped the crowd.

Lethal went for a flying elbowdrop but then a few balloons floated up toward the ceiling and Vinny Marseglia came up from under the ring. TK O’Ryan came out and distracted Todd Sinclair; Marseglia hit Lethal with a baseball bat. Jonathan Gresham came out but got beatdown by the Kingdom outside the ring until LifeBlood (Tracy Williams & Mark Haskins) evened things out.

In the ring, Taven used the Climax and got a close two-count, then a frog splash for another two. He went for another one but Lethal got his knees up, then hit a cutter, both for close twos. Lethal used a rolling torture rack slam for another close-call. 

Taven later suplexed Lethal from inside the ring to the floor through a table which illicit a “holy sh*t” chant. This spot probably could have come five minutes prior, but still, the crowd was there.

 The pockets of Taven supporters in the crowd either got louder at this point or they turned on Lethal, and at one point someone sitting near the hard cam shouted “YOU SUCK, LETHAL!”

After Taven kicked out of Lethal Injection the crowd was so supportive of him that even the announcers had to mention it on commentary. He DDT’d Lethal onto the apron, then later pulled out a ladder and laid it flat from the apron to the guardrail. Jay Lethal missed a flying elbowdrop from the top turnbuckle and crashed through the ladder to the floor. 

They teased the match ending with some ring boys carrying Lethal to the back, but Taven did a giant plancha onto everyone, including Lethal and quickly threw him back in the ring and did about five or six Just the Tips for more very close two-counts. Taven then dove off the top rope but Lethal countered with a big cutter, again for another two. The crowd was on their feet chanting “this is awesome” at this point. The two started slapping each other really hard in the face until Lethal used three superkicks and finally hit Lethal Injection … for two. The crowd was pretty much losing their mind at this point when the bell rang: a 60-minute time limit draw. 

As the crowd chanted “five more minutes,” Marty Scurll came down and picked up the ROH World Heavyweight title with him to the back.

The rapper Mega Ran came out to do a song about G1 Supercard in April. Bully Ray interrupted and cut a promo on Mr. Ran and his hype man. Ray made fun of them for liking video games. Mega Ran said he used Devon instead of Ray on the Raw/Smackdown video game, then Ray kicked them out of the ring. 

Bully Ray went on to say that the crowd should kiss his ass, then threatened to slap three little kids in the face. He then challenged someone whom he didn’t name to a NY Streetfight at the Garden next month. 

The promo itself was good but the placement was strange, and coming after a 60-minute heavyweight title draw it felt out of place.

Rush defeated Bandido

Dalton Castle came out for commentary for this match. He asked Ian Riccaboni if it was true that Riccaboni contributed $25 to the bidding war for Bandido last year. Riccaboni did not. 

This was decent but was mainly a vehicle to get Rush over as a serious ROH star. It was mostly big moves without too much story to it, aside from Rush working hard as heel.

Rush power bombed Bandido through the timekeeper’s table under five minutes into this one. He worked hard and got good heel heat here, especially when he did the tranquillo poses. Bandido did a tornillo and Fosberry flop to the outside. 

A good portion of the audience seemed to like Rush but he worked hard at staying heel throughout. He used a deadlift superplex on Bandido for two midway through. Bandido later draped Rush over the second rope and did a springboard 450, which apparently didn’t hurt all that much because a minute later Rush used a wild tope con giro to the floor onto Bandido. The crowd didn’t care about the selling because they were chanting “this is awesome” afterwards.

Rush went for a Jaydriller on the apron but Bandido blocked it and did a running hurracanrana to the outside. When he went for the 21plex, Rush countered it and hit the Bull Horn, a hard basement dropkick to a prone Bandido in the corner, for the win.

Dalton Castle came into the ring afterwards and challenged Rush to a match at MSG next month. Rush spoke both English and Spanish on the mic and accepted the challenge.

Riccaboni announced that tonight’s match between Silas Young and Jonathan Gresham had been cancelled because Gresham’s knee was storyline-injured during the Jay Lethal vs. Matt Taven match when the Kingdom attacked him. 

Tracy Williams & Mark Haskins vs. Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan has also been cancelled. 

No DQ ROH World Tag Team Title match: Villain Enterprises (Brody King & PCO) defeated The Briscoes (Jay & Mark Briscoe) (c)

This was a match you’ll either love or hate. If you love hardcore, borderline deathmatch wrestling, like late-90s ECW, this is for you. If not, beware. This was chaotic, bloody and was without much steady flow; it was big spot-for-big spot. And while it is, in fact, amazing, it’s hard not to worry about some of the spots PCO is taking these days.

Silas Young was on commentary during this match. Brody King wore a cast on his left hand in this. All four wrestlers had a chair battle in the ring at the beginning, like the ones Balls Mahoney and Masato Tanaka used to do. Mark Briscoe did a corkscrew plancha from the top rope to the outside early on. Brody King did a springboard turnaround crossbody to Jay Briscoe inside. 

PCO did a Michinoku Driver off the apron through a table to Mark, then got back in the ring and yelled at King to chop him to get him amped up. Villain Enterprises then hit Jay in the groin with a chair. It was chaos, cursing and violence, nonstop. 

King used a running Death Valley Bomb on Mark, putting him through a table in the corner of the ring. The match then spilled to the outside where PCO and King beat on Jay who did a nasty blade job. 

There must have been a kendo tournament in Vegas this weekend because there were two sticks that found their way into the match. 

After King screamed “PCO, do something insane!”, PCO ran down the ramp but was back body dropped onto the edge of the apron, then onto the steel ramp. He’s 51, for the record.

Mark Briscoe set two tables up outside the ring and did a diving blockbuster through both tables. Yikes. A bloody Jay Briscoe then used a gigantic Jaydriller on King inside the ring for two. The Briscoes brought the kendo sticks in the ring and double teamed King and took him out. PCO finally made his way back into the ring and no-sold like ten kendo stick shots, then broke both sticks over his knee. He was also bleeding at this point, and minutes later King’s face was covered in blood as well.

King threw Mark Briscoe off the top rope and it looked like it might have been meant to be a table spot but Mark landed flat on the ground onto a pile of chairs. He then botched a piledriver to Jay on the apron which also looked like it was supposed to be through a table. This looked really, really, dangerous. It looked like King may have slipped. You could see the bloody mark from Jay’s head on the apron.

PCO landed a moonsault onto Jay inside the ring for the pin and the win, putting an end to what Ian Riccaboni called what may have been the “craziest, goriest match in ROH history.” Your new ROH World Tag Team champions are Villain Enterprises, and they will face the Guerillas of Destiny at G1 Supercard next month at Madison Square Garden. Both the IWGP and ROH World Tag titles will be on the line.

ROH Road to G1 Supercard San Antonio results: Tag Wars finals

Posted on by Justin Knipper

ROH was in San Antonio, Texas on Saturday for the final night of Tag Wars on the Road to G1 Supercard tour.

The winners of the 12-team Tag Wars tournament will receive a Tag Team title shot at ROH’s 17th Anniversary pay-per-view and a spot in the Crockett Cup tournament.

Show Recap —

The San Antonio crowd looked relatively small tonight but were much louder and more enthusiastic than Tag Wars in Houston last night. 

Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana were on commentary for tonight’s show.

Shinobi Shadow Squad (Cheeseburger, Eli Isom & Ryan Nova) defeated Karl Fredericks, Clark Connors & Alex Coughlin

The energy from tonight’s crowd immediately fed into the spirit of this first match. Spots were coming from both teams with fury and with more intensity than the past few nights. 

The NJPW Dojo trainees handled much of the offense early on. Each of the young wrestlers were noticeably more expressive in all of their movements and with their facial expressions. It’s amazing what an excited crowd does to the wrestlers inside the ring. 

The crowd was very hot for Cheeseburger throughout the match. He was beat on for a few minutes by each of the Young Lions until Ryan Nova tagged in and showed some nice fire in his exchanges with Fredericks. 

Isom looked to have botched a diving DDT, but Fredericks seamlessly transitioned the spot into a drawn out (probably planned) triple Boston Crab spot. Isom eventually returned the attack and later finished off Fredericks with a jumping brainbuster that the crowd sounded like they loved. 

This was a surprisingly excellent match. The aforementioned hot crowd allowed all six wrestlers to shine, and pretty much every spot looked crisp and explosive. This is a great introductory match to all involved, and particular the Young Lions. Start to believe the hype.

The Kingdom came out after this. Matt Taven was wildly over with this crowd and they chanted “Real World’s Champ.” He congratulated 3S on their win and referred to them as the Powder Puff Boys. He said the Kingdom are fighting champs and that they’d wrestle 3S tonight for the ROH Six-Man titles, then reneged, and later jumped 3S. 

Dalton Castle and the Boys then came out and challenged the Kingdom to a match for the Six-Man titles. Castle was also very popular with this crowd. It’s a complete 180 from last night’s audience. Castle called the Kingdom “bitches,” which induced Taven to call for a ref and begin the next match.

ROH Six-Man Tag Team Champions The Kingdom (Matt Taven, Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan) defeated Dalton Castle & The Boys to retain their titles

Each Kingdom member looked great in this, and Castle looked to be on fire particularly. He wrestled most of this match for his team. He had nice exchanges with Marseglia and O’Ryan before the Boys joined in in for some double and triple-team action. 

Once Taven tagged in he pounded on one of the Boys. Taven really is one of the top heels in the business right now, and his promo before the match and his performance in the ring backs up the claim. 

The Kingdom spent a long while beating on that same Boy, frequently rotating members in and out of the match, sometimes sneaking in a few double-team cheap shots. 

Castle later used a reverse slingblade to spike Taven onto the top of his head, and after that did a sequence with the Boys were he kept tossing the Boys over the top ropes onto the Kingdom outside the ring. He threw them out of the ring roughly six or seven times each. 

When one of the Boys crashed into Castle on accident, O’Ryan and Marseglia used House of a Thousand Corpses on the other Boy to retain the titles.

Castle showed some kayfabe frustration at the Boys after the match, but they patched things up and walked to the locker room together. A split between the Boys and Castle may be coming soon, it seems like.

Tracy Williams (w/ Tenille Dashwood) defeated Rhett Titus

Tracy Williams is a really good wrestler, but I am still having trouble understanding why he’s nicknamed “Hot Sauce” and why he walks out to bad dubstep music. 

Superfluous complaints aside, this match was good. Williams has a unique move set and build, and his styled meshed well with Titus’ functional muscle guy aesthetic. 

Williams used a cool looking hammerlock back suplex on Titus for a close two. It’s notable how much the crowd quieted down, the first real down-moment of the night, and not as much out of boredom as much as curiosity. 

Williams used a huge missile dropkick and a one-armed butterfly superplex for two. Titus came back with a spinning helicopter slam for his own near fall. 

There was a sub-story throughout this match where Titus kept hitting on Dashwood at ringside. He flexed and posed for her at one point, then put his hand on her and she shoved him to the ground. Williams was able to capitalize on Titus and Dashwood’s tiff with a running flying knee strike off the apron. He then rolled Titus back into the ring and tapped him with a LeBell Lock.

Another good showing from both wrestlers. The crowd was quite into the match by the end of it, so the match can serve as a nice future reel for both of them in the future. 

Villain Enterprises (Brody King & PCO) defeated Kenny King & MVP and The Bouncers (Beer City Bruiser & Brian Milonas) in a semifinal Tag Wars tournament match 

This was a messy match that was really fun to watch. The crowd chanted “P-C-O” over and over before the match started. MVP was the second most over wrestler in this three-way. 

Kenny King and Beer City Bruiser were in the ring first. Thankfully King punched Bruiser in the face before he could finish his “I can’t bite, I ain’t got no teeth” bit. 

Brody King and MVP had the next exchange. They had a pretty brutal chop-off and King did an impressive double-jump crossbody block. PCO was tagged in, or really chopped in, by King.

PCO was superstar-over in San Antonio. He and Milonas had a ridiculous big man exchange. PCO has added at least one or two new moves to his move set each night of this Texas loop. It’s amazing to see.

Villain Enterprises used some double-team power moves before King and MVP took them out of the match with a set of kicks. King and Bruiser botched a springboard something-or-other at one point. The match dissolved into chaos towards the end and a few of the guys did sloppy dives to the floor. Bruiser looked to land belly-first onto the mats outside after his plancha. 

PCO pinned Bruiser after his monstrous moonsault that he stuck perfectly. It’s a spectacle, this moonsault, not only because it’s PCO doing it but because of how people react to it before it even happens. Everyone was on their feet, most people had their cell phones out to snap a photo. 

Villain Enterprises moves on to the Tag Wars finals later tonight.

Fin-Juice (Juice Robinson & David Finlay) defeated ROH World Champion Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham and Coast 2 Coast (Shaheem Ali & LSG) in a semifinal Tag Wars tournament match

Robinson gave his hat and shades to a young fan near the entrance as he walked to the ring. Riccaboni noted it was the fan’s birthday. It’s a cheap babyface move and it always works. Good on Juice.

The crowd was vociferous for Jay Lethal before the bell. Jonathan Gresham and Shaheem Ali kicked the match off. It’s easy to forget how smooth Gresham’s lucha offense is; he did a step-up springboard frankensteiner early on. 

It’s very difficult to fathom that we’re at a point of acceptance on the name “Fin-Juice.” Robinson was popular with tonight’s crowd but Lethal somewhat outshined him overall. He had some crisp exchanges with LSG early on. 

Coast 2 Coast did some cool double-team work that included a few dives to the floor. Finlay pinned Ali at the end with Trash Panda, a suplex into a shoulder breaker. Fin-Juice will go to the Tag Wars finals. 

Women of Honor World Champion Kelly Klein defeated Sumie Sakai by referee stoppage to retain her title 

This was actually one of the best matches of the night so far as far as crowd he went. Kelly Klein is working really hard at developing her heel persona. There’s more conviction in her cowardice and it makes her more convincing, more believable. 

One of Klein’s tracksuit lackeys distracted Sakai early on in the match, which allowed for Klein to trip Sakai as she stood on the apron. From here, Klein dominated for a few minutes until Sakai locked on an armbar from out of nowhere. She later used a big release German suplex and both were down selling for a few minutes.

Sakai was able to get the crowd more behind her as the match went on. They were stiffer with each other than usual and the crowd could tell.

Sakai did a big plancha onto the lackeys. She landed a brutal fisherman’s buster on Klein for two. The crowd was highly into it at this point.

There was an exciting near fall exchange at the end which saw both wrestlers kick out of each other’s finishers. Finally, Klein used K-Power off the top rope, then put Sakai into a guillotine choke. Sakai passed out and referee Todd Sinclair called for the bell. 

The Twisted Sisterz attacked Sakai after the match. They said they were putting the Women of Honor division on notice and then licked Sakai’s face. Colt Cabana carried Sakai to the back. 

Willie Mack & ROH TV Champion Jeff Cobb defeated Shane Taylor & Silas Young via DQ

Joe Galli, the new NWA announcer, joined Ian Riccaboni on commentary for the next match. He and Riccaboni talked of the NWA National Champion, Willie Mack, and the upcoming Crocket Cup tournament. 

Shane Taylor is one of the better trash-talkers on the scene today. He never sounds awkward or scripted and his character is very unlikable. He sucker-punched Jeff Cobb at the beginning of the match after Taylor and Young had a heel-to-heel spat. It’s the same dynamic Young had with Bully Ray. 

Cobb is another wrestler that does something that makes your jaw hang down for a few seconds in pretty much every match he’s in.

People were crazy for Willie Mack. The guy moves like he’s 175 lbs. He and Cobb did consecutive standing moonsaults to Silas Young. 

Of all the impressive things I saw in this match, the most impressive but also most novel was when Cobb deadlift pumphandle suplexed Shane Taylor. With ease. 

Galli and Riccaboni gelled together on commentary during this match. They made it feel valuable, like it meant something. It definitely was a positive aspect of the match. 

Cobb used a deadlift German suplex on Taylor, then double powerbombed Taylor and Young off the top turnbuckle as the heels superplexed Willie Mack.

Bully Ray ran in after this and started yelling at the ref until Cobb got into Bully Ray’s face. Young low blowed Cobb after this and he and Taylor were officially disqualified. 

This was all above average work but the finish left a sour but necessary aftertaste. Bully Ray is a great heel. Hopefully this angle leads to something more specific down the road. 

Colt Cabana reported that Sumie Sakai suffered a concussion during her match and that she was being tended to at a local hospital in town. 

Bandido defeated Rocky Romero

Who would have thought this match would be the showstealer tonight?

So, Bandido’s booking over the past few weeks has been so focused on getting him over as a superstar that it’s beginning to become apparent with the crowd. He has the look and feel of a breakout star already. 

The crowd was split between both wrestlers before the match, and the crowd made it feel a bit more special than it looked to be on paper. 

Romero and Bandido shook hands before the bell. Romero made it clear he wouldn’t go after Bandido’s taped-up ribs and back. This scene served as the match’s through-line. 

Before things really got started, they did an Eddy tribute spot and had a dance off. This received the loudest pop of the night up until now. 

As the match went on, Rocky “accidentally” kicked Bandido in the ribs but apologized for it. I interpreted this as NJPW-style storytelling and nuance, using realistic or logical ideas and appropriating them for an in-ring story. 

The match had a unique feel to it, pretty much a big time feel even though there weren’t any real stakes and it was essentially an exhibition match made to get Bandido even more over. For some magical wrestling reason, this one felt special. 

The crowd jumped out of their seats after Bandido did a tope con giro, and later a rough looking springboard dropkick to Romero’s neck in the ring neck.

Bandido used a torture rack into a knee strike on Romero and were both down for a nine-count after this. The crowd chanted “This is awesome” after Bandido hit a pop-up cutter. He finished the bout by finally hitting his 21-and-Up finisher, a rolling slingshot German suplex. An excellent match and special in a way I can’t articulate right now. 

Marty Scurll defeated Mark Haskins

They did the Frye-Takayama punching spot when the bell rang. Scurll was getting his usual large responses from the crowd tonight, but as soon as the match started the crowd got more behind the match itself than only Marty. 

Haskins had a Dynamite Kid kind of explosiveness in his offense. For some reason these guys had a built-in chemistry and rhythm together. It never felt like there were any out of place moves or transitions, every sequence slotting seamlessly into the next. 

Scurll did his usual crowd-pleaser spots but also busted out a tope suicida tonight, and after that one the crowd really began to lose it. They were really in love with this guy after this point. 

Haskins has a great Daniel Bryan wolverine scrapper feel to his style, someone who is sound technically but prefers to kick and punch and slap as hard as he possibly can. 

Scurll won the match after they traded a number of cradle pins; Scurll used a victory roll cradle to score the win. The two shook hands after the match. 

They showed the short Rush vignette they’ve been showing during the Tag Wars show this week. He’ll be at next month’s Florida shows.

After the vignette, they cut back to commentary with Riccaboni and Cabana. Kelly Klein appeared out of nowhere and snagged a headset and called out Mayu Iwatani for a match in the next few weeks. 

Villain Enterprises (Brody King & PCO) defeated Fin-Juice (Juice Robinson & David Finlay) to win the Tag Wars tournament

Tenille Dashwood was on commentary for this match. Villain Enterprises didn’t shake hands with Fin-Juice before it started. 

The crowd didn’t make much noise until PCO was in the ring. He tried out some savat kicks and used a basement dropkick to the back of Robinson’s head. He forced King to chop him to get him all juiced up. The Villains chopped Finlay a lot, like to the point where I could see his chest bleeding. They dominated most of the match.

Fin-Juice tried taking PCO down with a double bulldog but he no sold it, just standing there unmoved with his arms raised over his head like a super villain.

The live feed went out as Brody King back body dropped PCO onto the floor onto Fin-Juice. It picked back up just before King spiked Finlay with a Gonzo Bomb to win the Tag Wars tournament. The crowd chanted “That was awesome” at the ring afterwards. 

Villain Enterprises refused to shake hands with Fin-Juice. The Briscoes came out and attacked the Villains and it turned into a messy brawl. Mark Briscoe dove off the apron and elbow dropped Brody King, and Jay Briscoe bounced a chair off of PCO’s head.

Mark Briscoe then put PCO through a table with a Froggy Bow from the top turnbuckle to the outside. PCO no-sold it like the Undertaker and the crowd started chanting his name. He no sold around five chair shots from Mark Briscoe. They weren’t protected ones and looked more like something you’d see in late ECW. 

The show ended on a fiery note and Villain Enterprises have proven that they can get over as quickly as anyone else in the company. The match was really good but hampered by a tired crowd and a poor quality stream for a few minutes during the climax of the match. 

ROH Road to G1 Supercard Houston results: Night two of Tag Wars

Posted on by Justin Knipper

ROH was in Houston, Texas on Friday for the second night of Tag Wars on the Road to G1 Supercard tour.

This was the second of three straight nights of Road to G1 Supercard shows in Texas. The winners of the 12-team Tag Wars tournament will receive a Tag Team title shot at ROH’s 17th Anniversary pay-per-view and a spot in the Crockett Cup tournament.

Show Recap —

Aside from the ringside seats, the NRG Arena was mostly empty for Friday’s show in Houston.

Dalton Castle joined Ian Riccaboni on commentary for the first match. 

The Bouncers (Brian Milonas & Beer City Bruiser) defeated The Boys in a first round Tag Wars tournament match

There was a lot of comedy in this one. Brian Milonas chugged a beer in the ring before the match. The Bouncers made a lot of alcohol-centric jokes. Milonas slammed both Boys at the same time at one point. 

Bruiser later yelled his “I can’t bite, I ain’t got no teeth!” catchphrase which, as per usual, died a silent, awkward death. 

Milonas did superplex and Bruiser followed up with a frog splash to win the match. Dalton Castle saved the match with his commentary and relatively obscure Nickelodeon references. 

Sumie Sakai defeated Thunder Rosa (w/ Holidead) via SQ

The two had a quick but solid exchange of moves until Holidead interfered and Todd Sinclair called the match only a few minutes in. 

Madison Rayne came out, cleaned house, and cut a great promo on the Twisted Sisterz, explaining that the Sisterz stood against what ROH stands for. She said the fans wanted to see a fight and they turned the match into a tag match.

Twisted Sisterz (Thunder Rosa & Holidead) defeated Sumie Sakai & Madison Rayne

The crowd popped loud for this and started chanting for the teams to fight. Sakai hit a nice plancha from the top rope to the floor. Sakai received her own set of chants after this. 

The Sisterz slowed things down and double-teamed Sakai for a bit. Rosa is extremely charismatic. Both come off as organic heel wrestlers, not people playing wrestler for the night. Their conviction is impressive.

Sakai later made a hot tag to Rayne and again got another big pop. Rayne’s work was solid but brief. Thunder Rosa stole a pin by using an O’Connor roll and using Rayne’s tights for illegal leverage.

This was the first match on the card to get a loud reaction. It was a good length but could have went a tad longer. I look forward to seeing how the Women of Honor division develops this year. 

Coast 2 Coast (LSG & Shaheem Ali) defeated Shinobi Shadow Squad (Cheeseburger & Eli Isom) w/ Ryan Nova in a first round Tag Wars tournament match

Rhett Titus joined Riccaboni on commentary for this match. 

Eli Isom shined tonight. He’s improved rather a lot in the past two months or so and continues to get better. He used a pop-up Air Raid Crash for two on LSG. 

This was a decent match with some innovative in-ring work but sometimes suffered of Coast 2 Coast’s sloppiness or off-timed moves, particularly at the beginning. Their high spots towards the end did help increase the overall match quality, and their charisma — Shaheem Ali’s, mainly — was what made them interesting.

LSG used a 450 on Cheeseburger to advance to the next round of Tag Wars. All wrestlers shook hands after the match. 

Villain Enterprises (Marty Scurll, Brody King & PCO) defeated Clark Connors, Karl Fredericks & Alex Coughlin

The crowd went crazy for Scurll. He did some great chain wrestling with former New York rugby player Alex Coughlin early on. 

PCO demanded Clark Connors chop him a number of times when they were in the ring together. He then missed a senton atomico from the top turnbuckle onto the apron, a spot he’s been doing recently, which looked terrifying but PCO seemed like he was fine. 

The Young Lions looked better tonight, though I noticed they have little body control when they take bumps or are whipped into the ropes, and their arms and legs flail around asymmetrically. That said, each of them has their own brand of charisma, they are all highly athletic and will definitely be worth watching throughout the rest of this year.

Brody King hoisted PCO up over the ropes for an assisted tope con giro. Villain Enterprises won the match after King used his Gonzo Bomb and PCO landed his monstrous moonsault. The crowd chanted “P-C-O” over and over as the Villains exited to the back. 

TK O’Ryan defeated Jonathan Gresham

Matt Taven was originally supposed to wrestle Gresham but got on the mic before the match and insisted Gresham wasn’t worth wrestling. He called Gresham Jay Lethal’s lackey. O’Ryan offered to wrestle Gresham in Taven’s place and the match was changed from here.

Gresham and O’Ryan did some clever chain wrestling spots at the start of this. O’Ryan did a really good job as heel throughout the match. Gresham reminds me more and more of a modernized Dean Malenko with a different kind of charisma. 

These two had surprisingly natural chemistry with each other. Even though the crowd died out in the middle of the match during O’Ryan’s heel beatdown sequences, it picked back up towards the end. The crowd just wanted to cheer on Gresham, really. 

Red balloons flew up from under the ring and Vinny Marseglia jumped up from under the ring and onto the apron. While Gresham had O’Ryan in an Octopus Hold, Marseglia distracted the referee. O’Ryan tapped out but the ref didn’t see it, and O’Ryan was then able to roll Gresham up to win the match with his feet on the ropes. 

As the Kingdom trash-talked and beat on Gresham some more, Jay Lethal came out to save Gresham from the goons. He challenged Marseglia to a match right there and the next match was ready to go.

ROH World Champion Jay Lethal defeated Vinny Marseglia to retain his title

Lethal wrestled with a lot of intensity tonight. Marseglia threw the World title out of the ring and Lethal dashed at him and went to work. 

Marseglia kept cutting promos on the crowd and calling them puppets. He always has a forced “scary” look on his face that comes off as more a parody character of Bray Wyatt than someone who is supposed to come off as scary. He later pulled a small axe out from under the ring, but Lethal dropkicked him across the face and used a tope suicida.

Lethal did his best to get reactions out of the crowd for pretty much every spot he did and it paid off. He really worked his ass off here, like he had something new to prove. He hit Lethal Injection on Marseglia for the win a few moments later. 

Gresham dove through the ropes onto the other Kingdom members after the match. The crowd was on their feet after this chanting for Lethal as the action died down. 

Women of Honor World Champion Kelly Klein defeated Britt Baker to retain her title

Mandy Leon, wearing a comically large ranchero hat tonight, joined Riccaboni on commentary for this match. 

Klein is getting more comfortable as a mean heel champion who alternates between dominant and chickensh*t. Baker has excellent poise and is good in the no-nonsense babyface role. 

Baker used a few impressive submissions on Klein, and later a Mandible Claw. The tides turned abruptly, though, as Klein used a knee strike and a guillotine choke in guard position for somewhat quick win. 

Both looked good tonight, but this match was really made to put Klein over big as champion. It served its purpose.

Kenny King & MVP defeated Willie Mack & Colt Cabana in a first round Tag Wars tournament match

King and Mack worked well together at the top of this one. MVP and Cabana had a fresh and funny set of exchanges. They first used nice World of Sport-style chain work and followed up with an extended spot that saw Cabana shooting an invisible basketball; MVP “blocked” his last shot. It was your typical Colt Cabana fare. 

King worked really hard in this match and is another ROH wrestler coming into his own as a heel and with his ring persona in general. 

Cabana used a quebrada inside the ring and received a huge reaction; King later used a sloppy assisted tornillo that got a smaller one. He made up for it with a tight chin checker and a few flashy kicks.

MVP used two harsh Yakuza kicks in the corner on both Cabana and Mack, and King used a Royal Flush to win the match. 

Rocky Romero defeated Dalton Castle (w/ The Boys) and ROH World Television Champion Jeff Cobb in a three-way Proving Ground match

On commentary, Riccaboni continued to put Jeff Cobb over as still undefeated in ROH. Castle and Romero got into Cobb’s face before the match. Cobb essentially tossed both wrestlers around for the first minutes, as this match mostly functioned as a showcase for him.

Romero did a tope suicida through the ropes moments later. Riccaboni did a good job of putting over Romero’s offense.

There wasn’t much of a story arc in this, aside from the idea that Jeff Cobb is really strong. He did an impressive double back suplex to both Romero and Castle, then a swinging back suplex to Romero. 

One crowd member tried starting a “Fight forever” chant. It didn’t last long. 

Castle looked more spry than usual tonight. After hitting a tope through the bottom ropes, he went for a Bang-a-Rang on Romero, who reversed Castle’s finisher into a victory roll pin for the shock win. The crowd was into that.

Romero got into Cobb’s face after the match. Castle then shook both wrestlers’ hands afterwards. Romero and Cobb will have a match for the TV title sometime in the future. This match was fine but short and was mostly made up of high spots. 

They aired the same LifeBlood promo package from Thursday, the one with Juice Robinson talking about “resetting” the ROH universe. Life Blood consists of Robinson, David Finlay, Tracy Williams, Mark Haskins, Bandido, and Tenille Dashwood.

Juice Robinson, Dave Finlay, Tracy Williams, Mark Haskins & Bandido defeated Silas Young, Shane Taylor, The Briscoes & Bully Ray

Dashwood joined the announce team to call this match with Riccaboni.

All eight wrestlers huddled in the ring and talked trash at each other. This made for a cool visual. 

Bully Ray walked out before the match started and got tons of heat. He screamed at Bobby Cruise. He aligned himself with the heels and claimed that they were the ones who rid ROH of the Bullet Club. 

Ray started giving referee Todd Sinclair a hard time after this. He said Sinclair screwed him at Final Battle in his I Quit match with Flip Gordon and demanded the match be turned into a handicap match, with he and the four original heels vs. LifeBlood. 

Juice Robinson stole the mic from Ray and explained that the Houston fans are the ones who “call the shots” in ROH and that they wouldn’t stand for Bully being a — well, a bully. Robinson was really good on the mic and got one of the louder reactions of the night after that quick promo.

Bully Ray then started yelling at Finlay and told him he used to beat the crap out of his father. This entire segment lasted at least ten minutes or so until the match got underway.

This felt like a souped-up NJPW World show house show match. Each of the wrestlers were in and out of the ring quickly at the beginning, but things slowed down when Bully Ray started giving Finlay a hard time again. 

Robinson, on the apron, and Ray then got into it after Ray told him to shut up. They went at it for a long while after this. Robinson is more over than I’ve ever seen him in ROH, and here he played the sympathetic babyface role well and for a long time. The company seems like they’re going full-force behind Robinson this year and tonight it felt like it was working. Juice is really coming into his own as an natural, likable babyface. 

Ray beat down Robinson for a very long time, and later the other heels popped in and out and did a few high spots. This lasted for a good five to seven minutes. 

Robinson was eventually able to take Ray’s head off with a Booker T jump kick and shift the match’s momentum. As both lay flat in the ring selling, Bandido, wrapped in tape, limped down the ramp like he was Willis Reed in the 1973 NBA Finals or something. He got a big pop for this and lots of kids were jumping up and down in the front row for him.

Bandido did an Orihara moonsault to the floor, then a tornillo press onto Bully Ray for two. Everyone jumped in the ring after this and the match spilled out of the ring, all wrestlers brawling. 

The final sequences here featured wrestlers shuffling in and out of the match, one after another, all of them showing off their best spots, and the small crowd was enthusiastic at this point. 

Williams later superplexed Briscoe onto the rest of the wrestlers outside the ring. Bandido was able to land a frog splash onto Bully Ray to somewhat abruptly win the match.

This was one of the first test matches for the LifeBlood babyface group and really for ROH’s 2019 direction. They’re putting a lot of stock in this new babyface stable, and the good vs. evil “plot” was portrayed clearly on commentary, all of it a clear difference in direction than something you’d see on Monday night.

ROH Road to G1 Supercard Dallas results: Tag Wars begins

Posted on by Justin Knipper

ROH was in Dallas, Texas on Thursday night as the Road to G1 Supercard tour began.

This was the first of three straight nights of Road to G1 Supercard shows in Texas. The three events feature a 12-team Tag Wars tournament, with the winners getting a Tag Team title shot at ROH’s 17th Anniversary pay-per-view and a spot in the Crockett Cup tournament.

Marty Scurll defeated Rhett Titus

Sterilized jazzy lounge music blared as the baby oil-soaked Titus flexed and posed in the ring at the beginning of the show. The crowd’s initial “R-O-H” chant overlapped with these moments.

Marty Scurll came out to a superstar’s response. He was wearing new leopard print tights with “Villain Enterprises” on the back, a different aesthetic from what he wore during his Elite run.

Scurll did his superkick on the apron spot and a superplex later on. Titus did a big tope con giro in response, and at this point all of the baby oil on his chest dried up. He used a pop-up Liger Bomb but missed a not-so-good looking frog splash, which led to Scurll catching Titus in Graduation for the win in this opening match.

This was fine. It felt like a good house show match in that it was solid in ring action, though it was nothing spectacular — and it didn’t have to be. It was purely fan service, and the fans sounded satisfied as they chanted “MAR-TY” over and over as Scurll exited.

Juice Robinson & David Finlay defeated Karl Fredericks & Alex Coughlin in a Tag Wars tournament first round match

They showed a package of Juice Robinson introducing a new stable in ROH, LifeBlood, which consists of Robinson, David Finlay, Tenille Dashwood, Tracy Williams, Mark Haskins, and Bandido. Robinson declared it’d be a new era for ROH and that they are hitting the figurative reset button on the company.

Dashwood came out with Robinson and Finlay, then joined the announce team to help call this match.

Juice was over with the crowd and they chanted his name before the match started. He and Coughlin kicked the bout off. Coughlin is huge. He’s built like a football player, which makes sense as Ian Riccaboni explained he was a former rugby player.

Finlay and Robinson both used sentons during the first part of this match. Robinson was the only one with charisma in this match and the crowd only really reacted to him throughout. 

Fredericks used a nice dropkick and spinebuster on Finlay. The Young Lions did a double Boston crab spot and it got a loud reaction. Both showed lots of intensity during their high spots.

Finlay used Trash Panda on Coughlin to win the match. This wasn’t all terrible but it’s also not worth watching if you don’t have the time. The interesting takeaways here were Robinson’s popularity with the crowd and how well the US Young Lions did. They looked green, sure, but they didn’t look that much better or worse than Finlay, or even Robinson with regard to in-ring work.

ROH TV Champion Jeff Cobb defeated Clark Connors in a Proving Ground match

Katsuyori Shibata came out to second for Connors, his other NJPW LA dojo trainee.

Connors is another supremely athletic Young Lion and was not booked like a total rookie in this match — or at least he didn’t really come off as one. He was presented as a rookie to look out for throughout, like he’s possibly the Next Big Thing.

He wasn’t completely jobbed out in this match, though the bout itself was under ten minutes. Connors was able to slam Cobb and put him in a Young Lion Crab, but Cobb quickly hit a spinning back suplex and Tour of the Islands for the win. The two shook hands afterwards.

Dalton Castle & The Boys defeated Shane Taylor & ROH Tag Team Champions The Briscoes via DQ

Beer City Bruiser came out to do commentary with Riccaboni and Colt Cabana.

This was another decent but forgettable match. Castle was very popular with the crowd. He and Jay Briscoe kicked the match off. They jawjacked for a bit until Jay Briscoe grabbed the mic and asked Castle when he’d let The Boys grow up and fight like a man, so one of the Boys tagged in.

Both Boys got some high flying offense in at the front end of this match. The Briscoes are great at feeding moves to anyone and making them look good.

Aside from a huge pop-up Pounce from Shane Taylor, Jay Briscoe took the lead through most of this match, or any other time it involved a Boy.

Dalton Castle looked great in this match but was only tagged in for short spot-laden spurts. Considering Castle’s nagging back issues (he is still wearing a back brace), he’d probably be more valuable in a tag team scenario for 2019.

Castle almost got the pin after a Bang-a-Rang, but Shane Taylor dragged the referee out of the ring, breaking up the pin and ultimately getting his team disqualified.

Taylor and the Briscoes accosted the ref some more and pounded on everyone else until David Finlay and Juice Robinson made the save. Robinson got on the mic after this and told the heels and the crowd that they were going to deliver honor tonight in the main event (Gresham/Lethal vs. Williams/Haskins). He used the term “honor” a lot and implied that there was to be no more funny business for the rest of the night. 

Madison Rayne defeated Holidead (w/ Thunder Rosa)

While they seem to still have a long way to go, the Twisted Sisterz, Holidead and Thunder Rosa, inject something resembling depth to the Women of Honor division. They look so much different than the other Women of Honor and that somehow creates an illusion of depth in the division, something it desperately needs for 2019.

Holidead heel’d it up for most of this match, especially at the beginning, growling at the crowd and refusing to break submissions. “She likes it!” was the explanation she used to the ref on not breaking a hold.

Madison Rayne has the fired-up babyface deal down pat, and midway through this match she showcased some fast-paced offense. Holidead is slow in the ring and Rayne is quick, so the visual dynamic shined through as the two went back and forth. 

Holidead got a close two count after a ripcord cutter. Rayne attempted a crucifix into a sunset flip pin but botched it. They still went with this finish as Rayne picked up the pin here. 

Thunder Rosa immediately jumped Rayne after the match. Sumie Sakai then came out and chased the Sisterz off with a chair in a mildly awkward angle setting up a possible tag match this week between Sakai and Rayne vs the Twisted Sisterz.

Matt Taven defeated Rocky Romero 

This would have been a great match if it had been cut down by five to seven minutes. At the start, Taven got on the mic and made fun of a guy wearing a fleece vest before the match. He then mentioned that while both he and Rocky have held titles in NJPW and CMLL, the thought of the comparison makes him sick.

Taven called Rocky a Melvin and put himself and his purple title over for a while longer until Romero jumped Taven and the match got underway. 

Taven’s heel aura is so much more obvious compared to other heels on the current ROH roster. He constantly built heat while Romero’s pops got louder as the match went on. Taven used a Disaster Kick to knock Romero off the apron. He then demanded the “idiots” in the crowd clap for him. They brawled outside. Romero later dove off the stage onto Taven. 

A bunch of balloons floated up from under the ring and Romero thought it was from Vinny Marseglia, Taven’s Kingdom stablemate who often does the balloon spot, but it was a trick that allowed Taven to beat on Romero some more.

This slowed toward the middle. Taven did a top rope Boston Crab that looked very cool and got a loud reaction. Romero later did a tornado DDT and the crowd decided they’d get very, very behind Rocky at this point. That or they decided they just really hated Taven.

The two got into a slap fight that Taven got the better of. Taven later reversed Sliced Bread into a backbreaker. They went through a sequence of hot high spots and then the crowd started chanting “fight forever.” Like clockwork, Taven hit the Climax and the match came to an end.

Again, if this were five or so minutes shorter it’d have been great. It got the loudest reactions of the night so far, too.

The Kingdom came out right after this for their Tag Wars match.

Brody King & PCO (w/ Marty Scurll) defeated The Kingdom (Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan w/ Matt Taven) in a Tag Wars tournament first round match

Taven and Scurll teased getting into it with each other until Scurll chased Taven to the back. The crowd was loudly chanting for PCO before this one.

There was a point at the beginning of this match where PCO demanded Brody King chop him a few times before King whipped him into the opposite corner, where he basement dropkicked O’Ryan in the face.

Marseglia tried chopping King later on and totally whiffed; King’s reaction was priceless. The crowd wouldn’t really react to the Kingdom’s heel work and just wanted to cheer Villain Enterprises. This happens often at ROH shows, it seems like, where the crowd sits politely, silently, until they’re cued back into the match. It makes for a strange crowd dynamic. 

Marseglia was obviously put off by the silent crowd and called them silent “puppets,” desperate for some kind of reaction. They eventually bit and chanted more for PCO.

PCO used a number of power moves I’ve never seen him use before. He took tons of punishment in this match, both intentional and unintentional, including one scary moment when the Kingdom and PCO miscommunicated on either a back body drop or flapjack. PCO landed on his neck but seemed like he was fine afterwards.

The Kingdom did House of a Thousand Corpses but Brody King broke up the pin. Marseglia later missed a diving senton atomico through a table, which got a massive reaction from the crowd. 

King used a Gonzo Bomb on O’Ryan, then PCO hit his monstrous moonsault for the win.

This was a decent brawl that felt centered on the star of the match, PCO, who has adapted quickly to the modern in-ring pace we see in ROH.

Bandido defeated Silas Young

On paper, this could have been a disaster. It wasn’t.

This was originally supposed to be Flip Gordon vs. Bandido, but since Gordon was injured at Honor Reigns Supreme, Young wrestled in his place.

Bandido was very over in Dallas. He didn’t struggle much working with Young, whose style is entirely different. Bandido showed more charisma than I’ve seen out of him before, especially compared to a few weeks ago in Concord, NC.

Young received his usual amount of heat tonight. He blended his style to Bandido’s, as opposed to vice-versa, and it felt like it mostly worked.

The crowd stayed mostly silent as Young worked over Bandido for the majority of this match. You could hear every taunt and every complaint to the ref from Young, which made the production feel unintentionally provincial.

The crowd eventually became restless and started jeering Young, and when Bandido made his comeback the crowd apparently did, too, as many of them came to their feet to see Bandido tornillo and Orihara moonsault around the ring.

Bandido tried deadlifting Young later on but threw his back out. After more back and forth, Young hit the Plunge for a very close two and, for some reason, the crowd became unglued. They started slamming their palms against the barricade and chanting “R-O-H.”

After Young superplexed Bandido, he rolled through and went for another, but Bandido countered with a deadlift vertical suplex. The crowd did a “This is awesome” chant after seeing that one. 

The two cranked it up a few more notches for the final sequence that ended with Bandido using a rolling slingshot German suplex with a bridge for the win.

After the match, Young went to shake Bandido’s hand but kicked him in his left knee. Bandido sold this like crazy and was carried to the back by ROH staff. Riccaboni spoke in a hushed voice on commentary, with the intent obviously to turn Bandido into one of the company’s top underdog babyfaces. It seems to be working as the crowd chanted for Bandido as they cut away.

A short video package for Rush was shown after this.

ROH World Champion Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham defeated Tracy Williams & Mark Haskins in a Tag Wars tournament first round match

Kenny King joined Riccaboni and Cabana on commentary for this match.

All wrestlers shook hands before the bell. Typically straight-laced shoot style wrestler Tracy Williams came out to dance music. I’m still not sure why he’s called “Hot Sauce,” either.

Williams’ left shoulder is still in a functional sling. He began the match against Gresham and both exchanged fresh-looking chain wrestling and escapes.

Both tagged out to their respective teammates. Before Haskins and Lethal started wrestling, both posed and postured and it sounded like the crowd was very much behind Lethal. 

Williams and Haskins showed a natural chemistry together. Both used a variety of joint locks and low-spots to wear down Lethal throughout the beginning of the match.

This seems to be the pattern in a lot of Lethal’s matches these days: He tends to let his opponents shine over him, Lethal always seeming to function as the underdog champion, always fighting from underneath.

Gresham eventually blind-tagged himself into the match and used a deadlift German suplex on Williams; Lethal followed up with a tope suicida.

Gresham and Lethal then worked over Williams’ leg for a long while, all in true Anderson family fashion, always cutting the ring in half, always cognizant of Haskins reaching out for the tag. Gresham used a number of creative submission moves on Williams during this section of the match.

Williams was able to counter eventually with a cradle brainbuster on Gresham. Haskins came into the ring with enough fire to illicit a few reactions from the crowd. He used a sit-out Death Valley Driver for a close two.

The match’s story became more clear when Williams was back in the ring, as he did a noticeably good job of selling his left leg, the one worked over by Lethal and Gresham. He was later whipped into the ropes by Gresham and collapsed on his way there, clutching his knee.

Lethal tagged in and locked a figure four onto Williams for a close call that was broken up when Haskins shoved Gresham into Lethal. Haskins used some impressive offense on Lethal after this, which included a rather long-distance diving double stomp for two.

The crowd chanted “this is awesome” during the final sequences. There were great high spots and near falls, and Williams and Haskins showed an authentic fire that eventually got them over with the crowd in that there were a handful of times where they and myself felt for a second that they really could have gotten a fluke pinfall tonight.

That was quickly kiboshed when Lethal and Gresham did a double team slingshot cutter maneuver for the win.

This was a very smart match with a good finish. All four wrestlers went to shake hands until the heel tag teams of Shane Taylor & Silas Young and the Briscoes came out and beat the babyfaces down. Juice Robinson then came out to help and got beat up for it.

Riccaboni then mentioned to find out what happens on Friday night in Houston as the broadcast faded out.

ROH Honor Reigns Supreme live results: Lethal vs. Castle

Posted on by Justin Knipper

Honor Reigns Supreme 2019 takes place at Cabarrus Arena tonight in Concord, North Carolina.

After winning a four-corner survival match on ROH TV last week, Dalton Castle will receive the first title shot of the new year as he challenges ROH World Champion Jay Lethal tonight.

Newly crowned Women of Honor World Champion, Kelly Klein, will also defend her title against Jenny Rose in a street fight. 

The recently signed PCO and Brody King will appear, teaming with Marty Scurll as Villain Enterprises against The Briscoes & Silas Young.

Also on the card: ROH TV Champion Jeff Cobb faces Shane Taylor, Jonathan Gresham and Rhett Titus in a  four corner survival match (if Cobb doesn’t win, the winner will receive an instant TV title shot), new ROH signee Bandido takes on PJ Black, Flip Gordon faces Tracy Williams, Mark Haskins faces Beer City Bruiser, NJPW’s Juice Robinson & David Finlay wrestle Best Friends (Chuckie T & Beretta), and ROH Six-Man Tag Team Champions The Kingdom take on Shane “Hurricane” Helms, Delirious & Luchasaurus in a proving ground match.

Our live coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern time.

**********

Show recap:

3S (Cheeseburger/Ryan Nova/Eli Isom) defeated John Skyler, Cory Hollis & Josey Quinn

Hollis cut a promo on the ROH announce team before the match. They challenged any three other men to have a match with them. The Shinobi Shadow Squad Cheeseburger, Nova and Isom came out and the match began.

A solid opener. Isom was most impressive. It is insane that he has only been wrestling for about a year. 

Everyone in the match shined a bit despite the match’s length, which was under 10 minutes. 3S won the match with Oyasumi.

Mark Haskins defeated Beer City Bruiser

Not the greatest match in the world but not the worst either. 

After the bell, Bruiser shouted about “having a fight” and didn’t want to take part in Haskins’ “British crap.” He also told Haskins not to use any submissions, because apparently that doesn’t count. 

Bruiser did his “I can’t bite, I ain’t got no teeth” spot he always does.

Haskins’ striking and submissions looked great throughout the match. He landed a stiff closed-fist into Bruiser’s jaw at one point.

The crowd was silent for good portions of this match. Whenever BCB would yell things about beer or “his bar,” it seemed to fall flat. He wouldn’t get heat unless he was doing power moves or missing high spots from the top rope.

Haskins won the match with a diving double stomp. The two shared a beer after the match.

Juice Robinson & David Finlay defeated Best Friends (Beretta & Chuckie T)

Robinson gave his hat and sunglasses glasses to a young fan in the front row before the match. This was a sweet babyface moment. 

The crowd woke up a bit for this one. I’m not sure what exactly it was, but these four wrestlers had a much different presence than the guys in the matches before. A stronger, more believable presence. Take that for what it’s worth.

Beretta and Robinson continued building their NJPW U.S. title program during this bout. Beretta looked very good throughout and hit a very nice double stomp onto Finlay as Finlay hung over the guardrail outside the ring.

Best Friends did a double elbow drop spot and the ROH production crew did a hard zoom out, parodying what NJPW does with Kazuchika Okada when he does his ”Rainmaker” pose.

The announce team put Beretta over as being more aggressive than usual. Obviously indicative of a future NJPW storyline direction.

Robinson used a forward-fall snap DDT, something I haven’t seen him use much before. Beretta took a gnarly bump on his head for this. 

At this point in the match the crowd was at its most voluminous, lots of “Juice” chants and clapping. 

Many of the final sequences in this match were between Beretta and Juice, possibly answering what I questioned earlier. They had good chemistry together. 

Finlay took the surprise win with a suplex into a shoulderbreaker on Chuckie T. This was another solid one.

Beretta and Juice jawjacked a bit over the NJPW U.S. title but then they shook hands. No one shook Finlay’s hand, which he looked to be bummed about. 

– Colt Cabana and Ian Riccobani announced that ROH will be working with vettix.org is this year. This means that if you’re a veteran you’ll be able get free tickets to ROH shows.

Tracy Williams defeated Flip Gordon via referee stoppage

Kenny King joined Riccobani and Cabana on commentary for this match. He trash-talked Flip Gordon and said he wasn’t ready to challenge Jay Lethal for the ROH World Heavyweight title. 

Again, the crowd was either silent for much of this match or this event was poorly attended. 

Gordon sold his knee hard early on after a springboard dropkick. He rolled out of the ring early on and referee Todd Sinclair called the match. 

Kenny King talked a lot of trash on Gordon on commentary. It seems like they’ll be working a program together soon.

Proving Ground Match: ROH World Six-man champions The Kingdom defeated Luchasaurus, Delirious and Hurricane Helms

The Green Team vs. The Purple Team. Delirious ran around the ring before the match. Taven wiped is rear-end with a piece of Delirious’ gear. 

Luchasaurus used a few high kicks on TK O’Ryan. Not all of them connected, and he missed as many kicks as he landed. Once the novelty of a big man doing small man moves wears off it just gets hard to watch. 

Delirious did comedy spots. Helms looked solid anytime he was in but he is very out of shape these days. 

Marseglia used a stomach claw on Delirious. The last time I saw this move used seriously was while watching an old Gorilla Monsoon match.

Taven was the star of this match in that he was barely in it but got reactions to pretty much everything he did. Every move was sharp, every dig at the crowd responded too. 

Delirious severely botched a suplex and dropped TK O’Ryan on his head. This looked scary.

Luchasaurus used a great looking moonsault to the floor towards the end of this match. 

O’Ryan and Marseglia hit House of 1,000 Corpses for the win. 

This was mostly bad. Taven and (sometimes) Helms were the highlights.

Bandido defeated PJ Black

PJ Black, a man who once pinned John Cena, walked to the ring to almost zero reaction. 

People were excited for Bandido before the bell. Once the match began both began rapid-fire lucha-esque sequences.

Bandido did a backflip into a headstand, later followed by a plancha, a tope suicda and a Fosberry Flop where he landed on his feet. That was the sequence, a lucha buffet.

Black looked great. These two complement each other well, and I feel if they work together for a month or two they could develop an excellent program. 

The crowd finally gave Black some heat as he slowed the pace of the match with some submissions and flexing. He mirrored the “Set of Three” sequence Bandido hit earlier, including a drfopkickthrough the ropes and a tornillo. 

After Bandido hit a springboard corkscrew body press into the ring, the crowd came to their feet.

Bandido botched one of his innovative twisty moves. It’s one of the biggest dangers with the style both wrestlers are applying; if you screw it up, it becomes so much harder to suspend general disbelief in the match itself. 

Black botched a top rope Frankensteiner but it still looked cool. The crowd chanted “This is awesome” for the first time afterwards.

Bandido won the match with a moonsault fall away slam from the top rope. Both tried to do a lot in this match but ended up botching a number of spots. Kudos to Riccobani and Cabana for quickly covering up almost every time.

Despite the botches, the crowd seemed to like this match the best so far, and it was quite entertaining overall. A good match with Bandido getting very over. 

ROH Television Champion Jeff Cobb defeated Rhett Titus and Jonathan Gresham

Shane Taylor, originally booked for this as well, cut a promo beforehand. He essentially said he’s too good for the match, verbally downsized everyone in the ring and then walked to the back. The match became a three-way from this point, apparently. 

Gresham tried using a flying cross body block on Cobb who no sold it completely. It sounded like someone threw a steak at another bigger steak. Gresham sold it hilariously. 

Cobb used a hanging superplex on Titus. Aside from big high spots like this, the crowd was mostly silence, waiting for their cues. 

Cobb won the match after using an impressive deadlift piledriver and Tour of the Islands on Titus. This was all very good, despite the somewhat confusing Shane Taylor booking. Each wrestler brought their above-average games tonight. 

Silas Young walked out after the match, but Taylor snuck into the ring and ambushed Cobb before Young did anything of note. TV Title program between those two looks to be coming soon. 

WOH World Title Streetfight: Kelly Klein (c) defeated Jenny Rose

Kelly Klein came out with Camp Klein, her training posse. 

This was a fresh change of pace on the card in that it was a pure brawl, much more of a “real fight” than whatever Beer City Bruiser was clamoring for earlier.

The wrestling itself wasn’t pretty but it didn’t need to be here. Both wrestlers worked hard and mostly brawled around the ring. 

Klein choked Rose with a bungee cord, then put her in a cravat using the weapon. Rose fought back and used a number of excellent looking suplexes both in and out of the ring. She tried hard to engage the relatively shy and/or small crowd.

Rose later tried to splash Klein through a table but the table wouldn’t break. Rose then jumped onto Klein’s back while they were both on the apron and they both crashed through the table.

While the spot was wild, it was painfully obvious that Klein was setting up and calling the spot on camera. I’d say this was more of a production faux pas than anything; they should have switched angles.

Rose superplexed Klein onto a pile of chairs. This received an “R-O-H” chant. 

Moments later, Klein used K-Power onto a pile of chairs on Rose to retain. Good match overall that featured some brutal spots.

Villain Enterprises (Marty Scurll, PCO & Brody King) defeated The Briscoes & Silas Young

One thing that really brings ROH shows like this down is when the production crew abruptly ends a wrestler’s music and begins another’s. It comes off as very amateurish. 

PCO and Mark Briscoe had a seemingly endless chop battle in the beginning of this match. He and the other Villains were highly over with this crowd. 

Scurll and King did a cool superkick-gourdbuster combo on the apron. PCO then took a massive somersault bump onto the apron after Mark Briscoe flipped him from the top turnbuckle. It was one of the spots you watch and can’t help but cringe or squint your eyes in pain. 

Both Briscoes were fantastic as per usual; their consistency should be noted and praised. Young added a nice heel flavor to their team and throughout the bout. 

King did some insane big-man flying, then assisted PCO in a high somersault senton to the floor, all extremely impressive. 

Jay Briscoe was cut under his eye halfway through this match. It looked like hardway blood. 

Young did a nasty, nasty looking Canadian Destroyer to PCO on the apron. PCO is taking Mick Foley level bumps these days.

Brody King press slammed Mark Briscoe off the top rope through a table which got a loud reaction. The match finished with PCO landing a massive, almost delayed moonsault onto Mark Briscoe for the pin. 

PCO was so over with this crowd that they were chanting his name even after the spot. This was an exciting, almost late-90s ECW style bout of mayhem. 

ROH Heavyweight Title Match: Jay Lethal (c) defeated Dalton Castle

Fans were essentially split between the two with Lethal sounding to have a slight edge.

The two dashed at each other after the bell. Castle landed a huge German suplex within the first 20 seconds.

Lethal whipped Castle into the guardrail and looks to have smashed into a ring crew member. 

Lethal used Lethal Injection very early on for only a two-count. I’m not sure why they chose to do this spot so early. Was it to get Castle over as a really strong challenger, or is the move just not that effective anymore in kayfabe terms?

The pace slowed in the middle of this match, something I’ve noticed Lethal employing in his past few big-card matches. Despite the aforementioned mostly-silent crowd, he was in total control of the bout’s tempo, controlling the ups and downs clearly and with conviction. 

Aldis did a good job on commentary introducing the narrative that Lethal might have been playing rope-a-dope early on, adding nice depth to this rather mild match. 

The crowd eventually heated up towards the end of this match, somehow. Castle reversed Lethal Injection into a high angle release German suplex for a close two-count, but Lethal finished Castle off with one last Lethal Injection for the win.

This felt more like a decent TV match than a prestigious world heavyweight title match. The match itself was mechanically tight but the crowd was dead for the majority of it. The final sequence was very good and both wrestlers got good reactions, but overall it was unfortunately underwhelming. 

The two shook hands after the match as the crowd chanted “R-O-H.”

This was a sometimes good but mostly lackluster show. There were a few noteworthy moments and they seemed to all involve weapons, innovative spots or wrestlers taking sick bumps. 

It’s hard to see the finish line at Madison Square Garden from here. Keep an eye on ROH’s roster as they rebuild in advance of what could be one of their most important years to date. 

ROH Final Battle live results: Jay Lethal vs. Cody

Posted on by Justin Knipper

Final Battle 2018 takes place at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City tonight.

With the future of the four Elite members not yet officially announced, Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and Hangman Page will all be challenging for titles tonight. In the main event, Jay Lethal will defend his ROH World Championship against Cody.

SoCal Uncensored (Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian) will defend their Tag Team titles against The Young Bucks and The Briscoes in Ladder War VII, and Page is challenging for Jeff Cobb’s Television title.

The Women of Honor World Championship will also be on the line as Sumie Sakai defends against Madison Rayne, Karen Q, and Kelly Klein in a four corner survival match.

Also on the card: Marty Scurll faces Christopher Daniels (with Scurll’s future ROH World Championship shot on the line), Matt Taven takes on Dalton Castle, Zack Sabre Jr. makes his ROH debut against Jonathan Gresham, Bully Ray and Flip Gordon’s feud continues with an I Quit match, and Kenny King vs. Eli Isom opens the four-hour broadcast.

Our live coverage begins at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

**********

Show Recap:

The show kicked off with a video package detailing the angles between Cody and Jay Lethal, Dalton Castle and Matt Taven, and the three-way ladder match between the the Young Bucks, SCU and the Briscoes.

1) Kenny King defeated Eli Isom

The Hammerstein Ballroom was loud and lively at the beginning of the show.

King grabbed the mic and cut a promo on Isom and Jay Lethal. He said he really didn’t need to be at the show tonight because he wasn’t getting a title shot. He then attacked Isom with the mic before the bell.

Colt Cabana called Kenny King “a star” on commentary.  

King got pretty loud heat throughout this match, and was quite good outside the ring with the crowd work.

King clubbed and stomped on Isom at the start. Isom later did a big plancha onto King.

A few audience members in the front row kept screaming “KENNY’s SISTER!” and “You SUCK!”

Isom received scattered chants throughout the match. He did a few cool moves, including a high angle belly-to-belly suplex and a power bomb. 

King had Isom beat but wanted to make a point of punishing him. Isom reversed the momentum with a Gory Special Bomb.

Shortly after. King used Darkness Falls on Isom for the pin. This match was totally fine, with better heat than you’d expect at the beginning of a show.

2) TV Title Match: Jeff Cobb defeated Adam Page

Quick promo package on Cobb and Page before the match. Page threatened to jump off a balcony at Hammerstein tonight.

Page dropkicked Cobb out of the ring, then tried to his the shooting star shoulder block off the apron, but Cobb reversed it into a belly-to-belly. The crowd lost it for this. ROH replayed the entire sequence.

Cobb used a flying European uppercut on Page. The crowd was hot at this point and split between the two.

Cobb later used a beautiful dropkick to Page when Page sat on the top turnbuckle. He then deadlift super-plex for, like, 30 seconds, then did a standing moonsault. He then missed a standing shooting star press. Wow. 

The crowd was completely split at this point. Page reversed Cobb’s crossbody block by rolling through, then deadlifting Cobb into a fall-away slam. Unreal strength on Page’s part here.

More insanity on Page’s part in the following moments after a tope suicida and and a Orihara moonsault to the outside to Cobb, and later *two* standing shooting star presses, all for a two count.

Cobb used a swinging backdrop suplex and then the Owen Hart Summerslam 1997 tombstone piledriver on Page. The crowd did a “this is awesome” chant afterwards. 

There was a ton of back-and-forth towards the end. Page countered Tour of the Islands into a crucifix for two and the crowd was on their feet. Cobb then used two Tour of the Islands on Page for the win.

This was an excellent match with tons of top-tier athleticism. Both wrestlers are studs. There wasn’t a story going into this match, really, but it didn’t matter. Very, very good stuff.

3) Women of Honor title four-way match: Kelly Klein defeated  Sumie Sakai, Madison Rayne and  Karen Q

Mandy Leon was on commentary for this match. 

Everyone brawled at the beginning inside the ring, and Sakai did a missile dropkick to the floor early on. 

Karen Q did a double Boston Crab on Sakai and Rayne. Q and Klein cut a truce and double teamed Rayne for a bit, Q accidentally hit Klein later on.

Klein did a huge double power bomb to Q and Rayne. Each wrestler did a handful of each of their highest spots, and while the crowd popped for the moves, they were mostly quiet for the majority of this match.

Karen Q used K Power on Karen Q to eliminate her from the match first. Sakai did Smash Mouth to Rayne, but Klein threw Sakai off and nabbed the pin for herself. The crowd was groaned.

Klein and Sakai went stiffer in their exchanges and submissions towards the end. Klein kicked out of Smash Mouth; Sakai kicked out of a power bomb pin combo and K Power. Klein eventually won with an avalanche K Power. Klein shook hands with and hugged Sakai after the match.

This was all right, but much more interesting in the last ten minutes. The crowd was more into these two than the four-way itself. The first half of this match was fine in the ring but the crowd was obviously burnt out from the Cobb-Page affair. Klein was booked like a monster here and the finish made sense. Not bad at all but not really worth going out of your way for.

4) Zack Sabre Jr defeated Jonathan Gresham

Sabre smacked Gresham before the match. After the bell, they had a long catch style sequence. If this is your kind of thing, these two are probably the best in the world right now at this British/UWFi grapple style. The first pinfall didn’t come for at least five minutes into the beginning of this sequence.

 The obvious story here was that Zack is the big bully and Gresham is the scrappy tactician. ZSJ was in full Suzuki-gun mode in that he laid everyone strike into Gresham, every sub applied was tight. Everything between the two was crisp.

They had an insane slap boxing sequence and it looked like Gresham might have gotten his bell rung. His face was visibly red and a bit swollen, and his mouth was bloody.

After a series of reversals, Gresham attempted to use Sabre’s signature back bridge pin, though Sabre reversed back into his own, folded his arms, and got the pin and the win. 

Terrific technical match with brutal striking all throughout.  If you liked ZSJ and Minoru Suzuki’s tag league match in last week’s World Tag League, this is a must-watch.

5) Matt Taven w/ TK O’Ryan defeated Dalton Castle w/ The Boys

TK O’Ryan came out and had Bobby Cruise to announce that Taven is the “real” world champion.

Taven came out wearing two championship belts and a crown. Taven had Bobby Cruise announce that this match was for his purple title. 

The two got into it early and did some fast-paced brawling in and out of the ring. Taven did a Disaster Kick to Castle while he was on the apron, but the Boys caught Castle and tossed him back into the ring. 

Taven did a huge plancha to the outside but Castle moved out of the way. Taven landed on guardrail ribs-first. Brutal.

Castle with a running knee off the apron after this, but Taven later reversed things by throwing Castle into the entrance stairs, which also looked rough. The crowd was pretty awake by this point. 

The Boys got involved when TK O’Ryan was trying to interfere. Vinny Marseglia appeared from under the ring with some balloons and did a double inverted DDT to the Boys, then dragged them under the ring. I guess he saw the It remake.

There were more schmozzy antics happening outside the ring after this, and later Castle did a Bang-a-rang into the ring post to Taven, knocking him out almost completely. 

TK O’Ryan took one of the Boys and threw him, literally threw him, into the ring at Castle to break up the pin. O’Ryan was ejected by referee Paul Turner after this. 

Taven later kicked out of a Bang-a-rang, then hit Just the Tip and Climax for the win. This was good, fast paced brawl, though I am not sure what’s in store for Castle in 2019 considering tonight’s booking.

6) Marty Scurll defeated Christopher Daniels via submission

Interesting note: Scurll is wearing blue tights that read “VILLAIN ENTERPRISES” on them. No references to Elite I could see. 

The crowd mostly shouted each wrestlers’ catchphrases and gimmicks as the two mat wrestled for the first few minutes. The pace is slow but deliberate and allowed the crowd some breathing room, easing them into the match. 

Daniels later did an Arabian Press to the outside. It looks just as it did 15 years ago; I can’t believe he still even does it. 

Scurll played hard heel midway through the match. He got in some fans’ faces after super kicking Daniels in the face on the apron, his usual spot. 

Things slowed down for a while after some work outside the ring. Daniels sold his neck throughout. Daniels used a Blue Thunder bomb, but Scurll did a Kobashi-style half-nelson suplex for two. He later used a rolling elbow, Misawa-style, on Daniels. I go through AJPW phases too, man. 

Burning Hammer from Daniels after that and now I’m starting to think it’s all a rib. Someone should check the old Misawa-Kobashi matches from 97–98 to see if that’s what they were referencing specifically. 

Scurll did the finger snap spot which he’d been teasing for a few moments. Daniels used Angel’s Wings for two and Cabana sold it well on commentary, explaining that Daniels couldn’t lock his hands together because of the finger spot. 

Scurll used Graduation for only two. The crowd was back and in pretty much full support of Daniels and SCU. 

The crowd chanted “Happy New Year” at Scurll, in reference to the angle he’s doing on Being the Elite. He retaliated by stomping on Daniels neck, then putting him in a chicken wing for the win via submission.

The crowd threw streamers into the ring after the match for Daniels and chanted “Thank you, Daniels.” Bully Ray came out and low blow’d Daniels as he stood on the ropes. Ray got massive heat for this. 

7) I Quit match: Flip Gordon defeated Bully Ray

Bully Ray called Flip Gordon out after the low blow. Gordon came out in military tactical gear and a giant United States flag and walked from the balcony to the ring. 

Gordon attacked Ray immediately. On the outside of the ring, Gordon did a Van Daminator and got an “RVD” chant. 

Gordon’s girlfriend sat at ringside. They set up a table in front of her and teased a table spot early. 

After Ray smashed Gordon over the head with a chain, he started screaming at Cary Silkin. Bobby Cruise and then Todd Sinclair tried to get him to cut it out but Ray bowled both of them over. He then tried to hit him with a cane but Christopher Daniels jumped in front and took the cane shot himself.

Bully Ray threatened to power bomb Flip’s “girlfriend” and tried getting him to say “I quit,” but Cary Silkin hit Ray with a Cane. The two started screaming at each other and Flip’s Girlfriend gave Ray a low blow from behind. Gordon smooched his Girlfriend for a nice long full shot. 

Gordon came back and hit Ray with the US flag, then put Ray in a crossface with the stick’s end. Silas Young came out and attacked Flip. Cheeseburger attacked Young, but Young gave him Misery and rolled him out. Colt Cabana came in and hit Young with a chair. 

The lights eventually went out and  the Sandman appeared in the ring when they came back on. He did Sandman things, like spitting beer into Ray’s face and then smashing the can into his face. He gave his kendo stick to Flip who proceded to beat Bully Ray until he audibly gave up.

This was pure insanity. It was exactly, *exactly* like something you’d see in late ‘90s ECW; same structure, same overlapping angles via schmozzes within the match; a blackout surprise appearance. Fun match to watch and I’m sure was a blast to see live. 

8) ROH World Heavyweight Title match: Jay Lethal defeated Cody w/ Brandi Rhodes via submission

Cody and Brandi Rhodes came out in GI Joe or Rambo cosplay and looked sharp. During the ring announcements, Cody received the hero’s welcome even though Lethal was is from Elizabeth, NJ. Cody defused the situation by telling the crowd to kiss his ass because he’s not coming to the MSG show in April. Lethal grabbed the mic and told Cody that ROH was his company and that once he’s done with Cody the “old toy” would be “dead and gone.”

With Cody’s eyepatch and gauntlets off, he looked very much like Guile from Street Fighter II in the ring. For what that’s worth. 

Cody and Brandi jogged around the ring, taunting Lethal. Cody got into it with a fan, too: After shaking hands with the guy in the front row, he grabbed his beer and tossed it onto the fan. Just fantastic stuff.

On commentary, Caprice Coleman compared Jay Lethal to a parfait, with regard to the many layers of his offense. 

The pace was slower in this one. It felt like an early ‘90s WCW match at times, with everything looking snug and deliberate, all with a handful of simple high spots mixed into the sequences at the halfway point. 

Brandi Rhodes did an awesome spear to Jay Lethal behind the ref’s back . Yeah, you read that correctly. Cody used CrossRhodes for a close two-count. 

Jay Lethal teased doing Shattered Dreams. Brandi used another spear, but this time on Cody, accidentally. Sinclair went to DQ Cody for the interferon but Lethal waved him off. They continued the match, and Lethal went for Lethal Injection on Cody but hit Brandi instead—Cody pushed her in his way.

Lethal later used a CrossRhodes of his own on Cody for two. He did six tope suicidas to Cody, but back in the ring Cody spit water in Lethal’s face; all for naught, apparently. Cody used a Gory Special bomb for another two-count after this. Oddly, Adam Page came out at this point and rang the bell, like they were going to tease a Montreal Screwjob spot, but Page dashed off and it didn’t amount to much tonight. Probably an angle for BtE.

Lethal swung the momentum back his way and did a bunch of low angle superkicks and a Lethal Injection to Cody. They referenced the Ric Flair vs. HBK “I’m sorry” spot, where here Lethal feigned crying and flipped Cody off before giving him yet another superkick. 

After a few reversals, Lethal was able to lock on a figure four leglock to seal the win. This was a great match that was very much in the vein of Cody’s matches with Nick Aldis, who happened to come out after the match to congratulate Lethal. Before this, though, Marty Scurll walked out and got in Lethal’s face. Seems like they are going with Lethal vs. Scurll and or Aldis in the next few months. 

9) Three-way Tag Team Title Ladder War match: The Briscoes defeated The Young Bucks and SoCal Uncensored 

The Young Bucks came out in Rockers cosplay gear. The Briscoe Brothers threw chairs into the ring before the match. 

Fast-paced action from the get-go, and way too many moves happening in succession to accurately transcribe in the moment. For example, Matt Jackson did a twisting cutter off the apron, and moments later Jay Briscoe used a double stomp to put Scorpio Sky through a table.

Frankie Kazarian was bleeding minutes into this one and sold it hard, dangling on the ropes inside the ring. Mark Briscoe did the Terry Funk ladder-spinning spot but the Bucks  shut that down early with a double superkick to Mark’s head enclosed between rungs. 

The crowd was split between SCU and Young Bucks throughout much of this. The two teams had an exchange on the ladders halfway through and did some neat things involving the ladders and belt-grab teases.

The Briscoes recovered from the outside of the ring and beat on Kazarian with chairs. Kazarian’s sell job here and for most of this match was top-notch. 

Scorpio Sky did a tope con giro to the floor, then Nick Jackson with his Skywalker moonsault. Matt Jackson went for something but was back body dropped through a table on the outside by a bloody Jay Briscoe.

Later and in the ring, Kazarian low blow’d Jay Briscoe and threw a chair at Mark Briscoe’s head. SCU then did a slingshot cutter to Mark through a table on the outside. The table exploded, as did the crowd, after this. 

Matt Jackson pulled out a sledgehammer and teased using it on Jay Briscoe, but he eventually decided against it. It’s obvious when they shoehorn angles into their matches specifically for their Youtube show, but it often throws the pace off and into an awkward direction. 

A series of big, big spots came moments after this. Nick moonsault’d to the outside onto a few guys; Kazarian used a tornado dot to the outside on Nick; Mark Briscoe hurled a chair over the ropes onto SCU. 

Mark intercepted Nick Jackson as the Bucks went for the Meltzer Driver and caught him with a cutter off the ladder, then a Jaydriller onto Matt. The crowd was wild and on their feet at this point. 

Kazarian used a Styles Clash onto a chair on Jay Briscoe. He and Mark Briscoe fought over the belts atop the ladder. Both teams were flying off the ladders onto other ladders and onto tables outside. Nick Jackson almost killed himself soaring into a table off the ladder. 

The Briscoes were finally able to knock Kazarian off the primary ladder after Mark threw a chair at Kazarian’s head. The Briscoes are 10-time ROH Tag Team champions. 

This was almost nonstop high spots and chaos. While the Bucks looked great as per usual, SCU and the Briscoes were the show stealers of the match. 

No PCO or Brody King tonight, nor much in the way of what the Elite will be doing in the future, but top-to-bottom this was an excellent card. The worst matches were fine and the best were some of the best ROH content all year.

ROH Global Wars results: Two title matches

Posted on by Justin Knipper

The Takeaways —

  • Jay Lethal retained the ROH World title over Kenny King.
  • SoCal Uncensored successfully defended the ROH Tag Team titles against the Super Smash Bros from Canada.
  • The ringside area was crowded, but the rest of the venue looked close to empty on camera. 
  • The final Global Wars show was a decent card with mostly good to very good matches. The crowd was high for the highs and dead for anything they viewed as taking up space. 

Show Recap —

Karen Q defeated Kaitlin Diemond in a Final Battle qualifying match

Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana were joined on commentary by Kelly Klein to announce this match. The ringside area was packed, but the bleachers were virtually empty.

Diemond looked confident as she came to the ring. Karen Q slapped Diemond’s hand away before the match. Women of Honor World Champion Sumie Sakai came out to observe the two. 

These two looked great together. Q was quick and flashy with great charisma. Diemond seemed pretty advanced, and though she was taller than Q, she moved in a way that had them feeling like equals.

Q won with a modified Boston Crab and qualified for the four corner survival match for the Women of Honor title at Final Battle.

Afterwards, Sakai and Q jaw-jacked and got into a scuffle. Kelly Klein ran to the ring from the announce booth and Madison Rayne followed her out. Chaos ensued, wrapping up with Sakai diving off the turnbuckle onto all of the wrestlers. Sakai and Rayne faced off in the ring after the pull-apart.

This match was a great opener and could have gone an extra few minutes. The pull-apart got a lot of heat, but the verbiage between Kelly Klein and Q was embarrassing (e.g. “That’s gonna be my belt!”). It’d work if people actually spoke that way. 

Hangman Page defeated Chuck Taylor

Rhett Titus came out wearing a bikini and a hockey helmet. He joined the announce team for this match.

I wholly do not understand what went through the minds of the people who composed Page’s theme music. It sounds like the credits scene of an ‘80s action movie. Is that supposed to be his character?

They had a great exchange at the beginning of this match. Taylor apologized for pulling Page’s hair. He then challenged Page to a chop battle and lost to a shoulder block, if that makes any sense.

Taylor whipped Page twice around the ring into the guardrails. Page did a Shooting Star shoulder block to the floor but landed on his feet; Taylor then gave him a hard flatliner. The crowd was pretty awake at this point.

Taylor used a standing Sliced Bread for two. He cheesed into the camera and gave a thumbs-up as he tried to pin Page. They had a hot sequence before the match ended where Taylor went for the Awful Waffle but Page used the Rite of Passage to win. People around ringside jumped from their seats in shock, so I imagine Taylor landed hard. We couldn’t see it on the hard cam. 

This was a very good match that could have gone longer. They could have a great title program together somewhere in the future.

Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI defeated The Kingdom (Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan)

Caprice Coleman took over for Titus on commentary for this match.

BUSHI and Naito got loud reactions. There were lots of “Naito” and “L-I-J” chants before the match. BUSHI teased a handshake with Marseglia before the match but pulled back.

People liked when BUSHI strangled Marseglia with his shirt, and when Naito did the Tranquilo pose, but booed a ton for the Kingdom when they started breaking all the LIJ taunts up. This crowd needs their taunts.

When O’Ryan threw Naito out of the ring, the cameras pulled back and exposed even more empty bleachers inside the venue.

The Kingdom worked Naito over for a long while. Coleman explained that the Kingdom were so dominant in this match because it was a “single tag team match,” which is what I thought they all were. Don’t start doing the math on that one or you’ll end up in Scott Steiner territory.

The Kingdom did House of a Thousand Horses but only got a two-count on BUSHI, who moments later blew mist into O’Ryan’s face. This later allowed Naito to use a Destino on Marseglia for the win. 

Matt Taven came out after and attacked LIJ. He especially put the boots to Naito until Christopher Daniels came out and made the save. This all overlapped into the match between Taven and Daniels.

Matt Taven defeated Christopher Daniels

Daniels busted out an Arabian Press early on. 48-years-old; spectacular. Taven used Just the Tip and later a huge Falcon Arrow for two.

Dalton Castle came out with The Boys and joined Cabana and Coleman on commentary; he kicked Riccaboni out. He did mostly comedy color commentary and told a story about how Taven once ate all of his butternut squash soup while he was in the bathroom, which is the impetus for their feud, I guess.

The Kingdom came back out and tried to smash Daniels in the face with a belt. Referee Todd Sinclair did his best to break things up, but while he dealt with the Kingdom members, Taven kicked Daniels in the groin, then used a Climax on Daniels for the win.

This was a decent match. Taven and Daniels were solid for the most part, but the crowd lost interest in the middle and sounded sour on the screw-job finish. 

The Briscoes defeated SANADA & EVIL

The crowd chanted for EVIL before the bell. He and Mark Briscoe started the match. They did a great spot where EVIL put Mark in a full nelson, he couldn’t break it, and he walked over to the ropes for the break. It was simple but effective, and it made EVIL look more physically powerful than he usually does.

There were more chants for EVIL as the match went on. The Briscoes felt like old school heels in this match; Mark bore a stark resemblance to toothless Canadian legend, Mad Dog Vachon, as he strangled SANADA in the corner.

The Briscoes dominated much of this. SANADA dove to his corner for a tag to EVIL, but the Briscoes had already attacked him. He did finally tag in EVIL, who played the part of charismatic leader in this match.

SANADA put both Briscoes in Paradise Locks and the crowd popped big for both dropkicks to their respective Sandy Fork asses. Mark later used a blockbuster to the outside, and Jay later used a Jay Driller on SANADA for the pin after Mark distracted the ref with a chair.

This was quite good, but the crowd wasn’t awake for it until LIJ started doing the spots they’re known for. As the Briscoes posed after their win, EVIL attacked the Briscoes with a chair, sating the crowd.

Flip Gordon defeated Jonathan Gresham

Silas Young came out to do commentary and push his angle with Bully Ray. 

Gresham and Gordon shook hands before the bell. They started with some smooth chain wrestling that popped the crowd. Gordon did a tope suicida early and sold his knee here as though he seriously injured it. Gordon and Sinclair did a great job putting this over; it even quieted most of the crowd initially.

Gresham began working over Gordon’s left knee. He did the rolling half-crab Lance Storm used to use. The two later did a rolling sunset flip, spinning back-and-forth and back again in a circle. The crowd liked this. 

Gordon spent a lot of time attempting moves he usually does, like the standing moonsault, but couldn’t do them because of his kayfabe injured knee. Gresham did a top rope frankensteiner, but later Gordon was able to finish Gresham off with a Flip 5.

This was short but very good. Gordon’s selling was excellent and Gresham’s reluctant handshake after the match was a nice touch.

Gordon grabbed the mic and challenged Bully Ray to an I Quit match, even though Ray was “fired” a few nights ago. The crowd chanted “What?!” after everything Gordon said.

ROH Tag Team Champions SoCal Uncensored (Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian) defeated The Super Smash Bros (Stu Grayson & Evil Uno) to retain their titles

Sky did his “Worst Town Ever” bit. Daniels cut a promo talking about the prestige of ROH and said that SCU wants to defend the tag titles against the best in the world. Both teams were over with the crowd, but SCU were obviously the stars.

Kazarian and Grayson started the match. There was solid action between these two until Sky and Uno took over. Sky’s mat wrestling and chain movements were noticeably good. 

Uno later kneed Kazarian in the face in the corner, but he blatantly slapped his thigh beforehand. The impact of the slap and the actual contact of his knee were out of synch. 

Grayson used a High Fly Flow on Sky. Kazarian did a flying frankensteiner to the floor, which advantageously ended up spearing Grayson into Uno on the floor. Check the highlights for that one. 

Smash Bros did some cool tag work together. In terms of function, Grayson was Bret Hart, Uno was Jim Neidhart.

The teams did a double Frye-Takayama spot. Grayson launched himself over the corner onto Kazarian on the outside and the crowd went nuts. Uno used a swanton. SSB got an extremely close two-count and the crowd started booing.

Kazarian and Sky came back and finished Grayson off with a new finisher: Sky did a high angle uranage/Rock Bottom while Kazarian did a lungblower. The teams shook hands after this.

Another solid match but sloppy in spots. The crowd again didn’t come alive until the end. They seemed to be convinced they were going to see a title change but no dice on that one. 

Juice Robinson defeated Beretta

Robinson received a few chants at the start of this one. He did the Terry Funk jabs. They brawled on the floor for a while; Robinson broke the 20-count and missed a cannonball into the barriers and it looked crazy. 

Even though he missed, the crowd chanted “Juice!” afterwards. Beretta did a double stomp off of the barrier. Robinson cut his back on the barrier and there was a roughly five-inch gash on his right lower back. He did a standing senton after this. Not the best idea for someone who just cut their back open, but hey.

Beretta did a somersault senton over to the outside and sold his ribs. He tried a crossbody block from the top, but Robinson countered it with a codebreaker. Great timing on that spot. 

Beretta did a pretty tornado DDT that Robinson sold with crossed eyes. He got a very close two-count after a brutal Bomaye to the back of Robinson’s head. 

Riccaboni did his best to put moments in this match over on commentary, but the crowd didn’t always match his enthusiasm. They were polite but mostly quiet until the end.

Beretta actually used two piledrivers on Robinson in this match, and one was to the outside. It wasn’t enough, though, as Robinson countered with a straight left punch and a Pulp Friction for the win.

Robinson got on the mic and cut a quick promo saying he is coming for Cody’s IWGP United States Heavyweight title. 

Both wrestlers tried really hard here. It was a decent match, but it didn’t have the star power or high stakes it needed to ignite the crowd.

The Young Bucks defeated Time Machine (Chris Sabin & KUSHIDA)

Sabin & KUSHIDA received a tepid reaction. The crowd did a variety of Young Bucks/Elite-centric chants. 

Nick Jackson and KUSHIDA started the match; KUSHIDA got a small chant. The two were great together for a minute or so, then Matt joined the fun. 

The Bucks launched into their usual tag sequences with KUSHIDA. The crowd at one point was chanting “This is awesome” and Matt only had KUSHIDA in an armbar; the crowd made their mind up beforehand, apparently. 

Sabin later joined the match and he and KUSHIDA went through a few of their own tag sequences. They’re finally beginning to feel like an established tag team, though it’s unfortunately come after the NJPW Junior Tag League.

This crowd was weird. They only seemed to respond to big spots or upon being cued in by the wrestlers themselves. It felt like the crowd would periodically check out, particularly when Sabin or KUSHIDA were on the offensive. That’s the other edge of the sword in babyface vs. babyface tag matches, that fans don’t want to boo the other team because they like them, so instead they sat quietly. 

More Bang for Your Buck didn’t pan out for the Young Bucks. KUSHIDA and Sabin hit Made in Osaka for two. This didn’t lead to anything, either, and we then went on a road trip to Superkick City. 

The Bucks used a Five-Star Meltzer Driver for what seemed to be the win, but KUSHIDA broke up the pin. Matt Jackson was able to slap on a sharpshooter and Sabin eventually tapped.

A good match that would have died if the Bucks weren’t in it. While Time Machine looked tighter and more crisp than they have together basically ever, the crowd wanted to see the Young Bucks do cool moves and win.

ROH World Champion Jay Lethal defeated Kenny King to retain his title

They played pre-taped promos from Lethal and King. Lethal’s was terrific and the delivery was top-notch; King’s was fine.

King came out to little reaction. Lethal got tons of streamers thrown in the ring for him. When Bobby Cruise announced that this was for the ROH World title, the crowd made a sound that I can only describe as a human ellipsis. 

King jumped Lethal before the bell. He did a few kicks and then a tornillo to the outside. He worked over Lethal for a long while and the crowd booed a bit but was mostly silent until Lethal took the match’s reins.

King used a brutal suplex with a high-crotch and dumped Lethal head-first into the second turnbuckle. He did a spinebuster after this and both moves looked really good.

King tried hard to get the crowd upset with him. He succeeded, sort of. To those who wait, as I heard somewhere. 

King teased using the title as a weapon on Lethal until Todd Sinclair stopped him. There were more submission/rope break/taunt sequences from King. He spit on Lethal and it got heat, but he ruined it by screaming WWE-inspired verbiage (e.g. “I’ve trained my whole life for this!”).

Lethal used a running Death Valley Driver, but King reversed it into a pin. King did the Royal Flush but couldn’t finish. He missed a Shooting Star Press, then Lethal did a Lethal Injection for another very close two. The crowd came back and finally started chanting “This is awesome” here.

Lethal began an excessive beatdown onto King. He accidentally knocked Sinclair over. King grabbed the belt but Lethal knocked it away. King then pinned Lethal for three — but his foot was on the ropes. Sinclair saw it and waved the finish off. Lethal hit the Lethal Injection a few moments later for the win.

Aside from the hot finish, this match was bad. King as the heel led the match and it was mostly slow and not in a reasonable way, it was just slow and not very good. 

ROH Global Wars results: Four-way tag match, Naito vs. Hangman Page

Posted on by F4W Staff

By Justin M. Knipper

The Takeaways —

  • This was a jazzed-up house show featuring mostly high-quality singles matches on the card. The crowd was raucous and the venue looked to be sold out.
  • If not for the awkward finishing sequence, Tetsuya Naito and Hangman Page’s match tonight could have been a MOTY candidate, and possibly a career-making match for Page. The crowd turned on the match immediately after the false finish. It never fully recovered.
  • SoCal Uncensored were as over with the crowd as any of the Elite members tonight.
  • There were less issues with the stream than last night’s show in Lewiston, Maine.

Show Recap — 

There was a packed house in Lowell, Massachusetts as the Global Wars tour continued on Thursday night. Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana were on commentary once again for this show.

Matt Taven defeated BUSHI

Taven came out to a loud hometown hero pop. He cut a promo mainly on Dalton Castle. He called him a coward, then cut a promo on BUSHI, and even dropped a Boston Red Sox reference, all to roars of support.

BUSHI received an impressive reaction when he came out, too. Some fans threw ribbons into the ring for him. I hadn’t realized he had his own theme song until tonight. 

BUSHI refused to shake Taven’s hand before the bell. This elicited a wave of “ooohs” throughout the crowd. A segment of the fans started chanting for BUSHI after this. 

They opened with a fast lucha-styled sequence. The match spilled to the outside early; Taven used a dropkick through the ropes then jaw-jacked into the camera. He never forces his trash talk, and it’s often quite good.

They brawled a while longer outside the ring. BUSHI did a spot where he basically rammed Taven skull-first into the apron and it looked brutal, which also got a loud reaction.

BUSHI took his shirt off and choked Taven with it, but Taven came back with his running penalty kick. He then mounted BUSHI and started punching him for about 20 seconds. 

They exchanged a lot of moves with intensity during the middle of this match, with Taven getting the better of the rope-running and fisticuffs. 

BUSHI later did a BUSH-a-roonie and then a swinging neck screw for a two-count. He tried to blow mist in Taven’s face, but Taven used the referee as a shield; when BUSHI spewed, they both ducked. Taven then used a Disaster Kick, then a Climax on BUSHI for the win. 

The two were about to shake hands afterwards before BUSHI low blowed Taven. It got a big heel reaction for BUSHI.

Despite the abrupt ending, this was a much better match than one would expect on paper. Taven is an underrated wrestler, and especially unsung as a modern heel. BUSHI’s style meshed perfectly with Taven’s because I think they’re more similar than different, style-wise.

Dalton Castle & Juice Robinson defeated The Bouncers (Beer City Bruiser & Brian Milonas)

Rhett Titus got a spotlight entrance before joining Riccaboni and Cabana on commentary. I’m not sure what this angle is supposed to lead to, but they’ve been doing it on pretty much every show since last week.

Riccaboni claimed that the Bouncers are the biggest tag team in ROH history.

Robinson and Castle had a really spectacular entrance. The Boys wheeled them out on a table. Castle did a Marilyn Monroe pose on his side while Robinson, who was wearing a colorful and shiny robe, had his arms open in a Randy Savage-meets-George Clinton-meets-Jesus pose.

Colt Cabana: “This looks so right.”

People were excited and somewhat stunned over the entrance. Castle is still wrapped up around the left part of his body and his waist. The two teams exchanged nonsense words and shook hands before the bell.

Castle did a lot of comedy. One of the Boys stole one of the Bouncers’ beers, so Bruiser chased him. In the ring, Castle and Robinson did a comedy punching spot to Milonas, then Milonas passed out onto Castle. The Boys came in and tried to help both Robinson and referee Todd Sinclair push Milonas off of Castle. Bruiser chugged a beer and then everyone finally pushed Milonas off. 

The crowd started chanting “This is wrestling.”

Milonas did a crossbody block. He’s very slow — but it’s still impressive to see. He tagged Beer City Bruiser in and he did the “I can’t bite, I ain’t got no teeth!” spot he did last night. The production team zoomed on his face again, just like in Lewiston. They’re trying to get this over as some sort of memorable catchphrase thing, it seems like.

Milonas did a few more big-man high impact moves but missed another crossbody block. Castle finally got a few real spots into the match and used one good-looking tope suicida through the bottom rope onto Bruiser.

Back in the ring, they double-suplexed Milonas onto Bruiser. The Bouncers tried to use a Sidewinder, the finish that the Smoking Gunns used to use, but Milonas whiffed and crashed posterior-first into the mat. Robinson used Pulp Friction on Bruiser for the win. The teams shared beers after the match. 

This was mostly comedy mixed in with some decent wrestling. It went about five minutes too long and didn’t translate onto TV well, but the crowd was hot during the match. I imagine it was fun to watch if you were there, but on my end it wasn’t great.

Flip Gordon defeated Frankie Kazarian

There were tons of “SCU” shouts before the match. Gordon was over with the crowd, too.

The two had a number of excellent grappling and rope-running sequences at the beginning of this match. They began exchanging more strikes and high spots; Kazarian landed a vicious-looking guillotine leg drop to Gordon’s head on the apron. 

Kazarian used a straight jacket armbar on Gordon for a moment, then threw him to the outside and did a slingshot frankensteiner to the floor. He followed up with a slingshot DDT to Gordon inside the ring.

Gordon used a springboard spear on Kazarian. Gordon has used this move more recently and seems like he’s getting more comfortable with the timing. 

The two traded elbows and open palm strikes. Gordon used a back heel to Kazarian’s forehead and a Falcon Arrow for two. Kazarian caught Gordon as he catapulted himself over the ropes with a cutter.

On the top turnbuckle, they teased Kazarian superplexing Gordon, but Gordon escaped and dropkicked Kazarian in the back. Gordon went for another springboard spear, but Kazarian reversed it with a codebreaker. 

Gordon hopped up to the top rope and kicked Kazarian as he sat on the turnbuckle. Gordon missed a 450 and landed on Kazarian’s knees. 

They finished the match with a back-and-forth sunset flip pinning sequence that Gordon got the better of, allowing him to steal the win. The two shook hands afterwards.

This was a very good match, and a great example of a “gritty” American high flyer’s match with and intense pace and a ton of innovative moves. It felt similar to the matches Jerry Lynn and Rob Van Dam used to have in ECW, just without any gimmicks, really.

Women of Honor World Champion Sumie Sakai defeated Jenny Rose in a proving ground match

Rhett Titus left and Brandi Rhodes came out and joined Riccaboni and Cabana on commentary. Riccaboni explained that if Jenny Rose could either make it to a draw or beat Sakai then she could be in the four-way match for the Women of Honor title at Final Battle.

The two shook hands before the bell. Sakai walked all over Rose’s back, literally. Rose used power moves on Sakai, including a giant vertical suplex. 

Sakai did a missile dropkick to the floor and landed really hard on her side. Rose threw Sakai into the barrier and then speared her.

The crowd died after these high spots. As the two laid on the floor, the camera cut to Brandi talking. ROH production doesn’t always do this, so it’s worth noting.

Brandi said “It felt like it’s been 30 minutes!” Because the wrestlers were working so hard. Rose used more power moves, like a big German suplex and a codebreaker, though Sakai did a lot of dropkicking and used a swinging fisherman’s neckbreaker on Rose for two.

Brandi said “I don’t know that many moves,” in reference to all the moves Sakai and Rose exchanged. I’m not sure if that was the right thing to say. 

Sakai did a top rope frankensteiner and won the match. They shook hands and hugged after the bell. Since Rose lost, it looks like she won’t be in the four-way WOH title match at Final Battle.

The crowd was polite for this match. There were a few interesting sequences with cool moves and hard strikes, but the rhythm was strange and the pace was often awkward. 

Scorpio Sky defeated Jay Briscoe

Briscoe attacked Sky before the match started. He roughed up Sky outside the ring, slamming him into the barrier and smothering him with punches.

Sky made it back to the ring and used punches of his own and a 100 mph frankensteiner on Briscoe. He suplexed Briscoe onto the mats on the outside. Briscoe countered a slingshot move Sky was going to do into a cutter. 

Briscoe controlled the middle part of this match. There were constant shouts of “SCU” throughout a lot of this and the crowd was loudly behind Sky. Those guys are more over than they’ve ever been.

They traded punches, kicks, and uppercuts. Sky used a codebreaker for two. Briscoe used a Rude Awakening neckbreaker for a two-count of his own. 

Mark Briscoe came out and held his brother Jay’s leg to prevent Sky from doing something to him off the turnbuckle. Christopher Daniels came out and beat up Mark. Jay brought a chair in the ring, shh’d the crowd, and swung the chair but missed, allowing Sky to schoolboy Jay and steal the upset win.

This was another really good match, similar in ways to the Gordon vs. Kazarian match earlier. Jay Briscoe was an excellent heel throughout, and that’s where the difference is between the matches; the pace was slower, but still intense.

EVIL & SANADA defeated Bully Ray & Silas Young 

Bully Ray came out to a chorus of boos in silence again. The crowd chanted “Yankees suck.” He gave ring announcer Bobby Cruise a hard time again, like in Lewiston, and then cut a promo on the crowd and called them morons. He dared the crowd to hit him in the head with one of their rolls of ribbons and if someone could, he’d give them $20. Tons of people started throwing ribbons into the ring. A lady in front actually nailed him in the head. 

“I’m a scumbag, but I’m a man of my word.” Ray walked over to the woman at the barrier and tore up his $20 bill in front of her. Then he threw it at her. 

This had nuclear heat. When Silas Young came down you could tell fans were still buzzing from what they had just seen. 

EVIL and SANADA came out and received a huge pop. The crowd was burning hot as they got in the ring. Ray demanded the mic from Cruise and the crowd began chanting “Shut the f*ck up” at him. The mic didn’t even work. 

Ray did a lot of crowd work on the apron during this match, 1999 ECW style sans curse words and homophobic slurs.

SANADA and Young kicked the match off. SANADA’s body movement was spry and effortless. Ray and Young argued a lot. They have a unique double-heel chemistry and I’m interested to see how their relationship factors into Final Battle.

Bully Ray chopped EVIL when he wasn’t looking on the apron. There was a massive “EVIL” chant after this. Ray and EVIL screamed in each other’s face and did machismo shoulder block spots. EVIL was eventually able to knock Ray over twice and got even bigger reactions. He shook the ropes like Ultimate Warrior. The new charismatic EVIL is really fun to watch.

He used a spinning sidewalk slam onto Young later, but Young and Ray countered with a Doomsday Device a few moments after this. Ray and Young were calling the majority of this match, it seemed. It worked because you couldn’t help but feel sympathy for LIJ, and especially EVIL.

EVIL slammed Ray from the top turnbuckle and finally tagged in SANADA, who did a few pretty dropkicks, both low and high, and finished his sequence with a TKO on Young. 

EVIL and Ray brawled outside the ring while SANADA put Young in the Paradise Lock. Later, Ray accidentally gave his partner a lariat, and LIJ capitalized. They double-suplexed Ray, then gave Young the Magic Killer for the win.

Young and Ray jawed at each other afterwards and teased a brawl. Bully Ray conceded and went in for a hug, but Young shoved him away and he walked to the back.

This match had special heat compared to other matches on the card, and, like him or loathe him, Bully Ray was the conductor here. He was able to get everyone over, especially EVIL, as well as build this problematic relationship he has had with Young.

ROH TV Champion Jeff Cobb defeated Christopher Daniels in a non-title match

Even more “SCU” chants before the match, plus a number of “Fallen Angel” chants. 

After the bell rang, the two opened the match with a long and realistic looking sequence. The crowd stayed quiet but seemingly interested, studying every exchange.

Daniels tried to punch Cobb in the head but hurt his hand on his skull. Cobb used a chinlock and drove the knee into Daniels’ back. Daniels had kinesio tape on his vertebrae/neck/scapula area tonight. 

Cobb used an impressive delayed vertical superplex on Daniels for the first real two-count of this match. Cobb slowed the pace once again and worked Daniels’ back.

Daniels, at 48 years old, used an Arabian press to the floor onto Cobb.

Cobb’s first suplex was a German one in the ring at this point in the match; he managed only a two for it. Daniels countered later with a flatliner into a Koji Clutch, but Cobb stood up, lifted him up with one arm, and tossed Daniels away. 

Later, Daniels used a top rope frankensteiner, then a picture-perfect Angel’s Wings to the massive Cobb, but only for a one-count. The announcers sold it hard, as did Daniels in the ring. 

Cobb willed a few punches to counterbalance Daniels’ offense, then used a swinging backdrop suplex and the Tour of the Islands to win the match. 

Yet another great match; solid, but too short. An extra five to seven minutes would have built more drama, but that’s live wrestling.

The stream went down directly after this match. The spinning Windows 98 ROH logo screensaver returned and the sound was out for most of the interval between matches.

IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Cody Rhodes (w/ Brandi Rhodes) defeated Mark Briscoe in a non-title match

The stream returned with Briscoe already in the ring. Brandi changed her outfit. Cody was a megastar at this show and spent the opening of this match teasing who he’d throw his shirt to.

Mark Briscoe has a mohawk now. He also had some sort of makeup on under his eyes. This match was at the regular Cody pace with him rolling in and out of the ring, stalling, and maximizing the response he was getting. Briscoe played the rabid brawler, as per usual.

Cody did a high impact tope suicida to Briscoe and then flexed on the ramp. People started chanting “The Elite” at him after this.

Briscoe used Brandi as a shield, then capitalized on this both inside and later outside the ring. Outside, Briscoe choked Cody with cable cords, suplexed him onto the mats, then did the Cactus Jack diving elbow drop onto the floor. Briscoe stalked Brandi after this. 

Briscoe dominated much of the middle part of this match. Cody attempted a few comebacks, and finally used a top rope judo-like throw from the top turnbuckle into the ring onto Briscoe, but it wasn’t enough to keep Briscoe down for long.

I noticed a young kid jumping up and down in the front row and screaming for Cody at this point in the match. 

Cody countered with a 1-2-3 Kid style moonsault press onto Briscoe. Cody did the Dusty jabs and a Disaster Kick, and later a modified figure four leg lock, but Briscoe reversed it. I still don’t understand the kayfabe mechanics of that reversal.

Briscoe did a running blockbuster off the apron, rolled Cody back into the ring, and then used a Froggy Bow, but only got a two-count because Cody put his foot on the rope.

Briscoe yelled for the Cutthroat Driver, but Cody grabbed the referee and used him to break Briscoe’s grip. Then, behind the referee’s back, Cody gave Briscoe a low blow, and then hit Cross Rhodes for the win.

The crowd was noisy for Cody and Brandi Rhodes. Cody got in the ring after the match and held up a banner that read “Cody Rhodes for President 2020.”

A solid match with more grit than flash. Cody is a superstar, and Briscoe’s rabid-but-still-maturing heel character meshed well with Cody tonight.

Tetsuya Naito defeated Hangman Page

People screamed for Naito and chanted “This is awesome” before the match even started. 

Naito didn’t feel like any smaller of a star than he is in Japan tonight. When I’ve watched Naito wrestle in ROH in the past, his whole essence sometimes fell flat; he had never picked up the same steam he cultivated in Japan.

Naito tried to get Page and referee Todd Sinclair to do the tranquilo pose before the match. The crowd was obviously excited to see Naito and kept chanting his name.

Page worked at Naito’s pace and was noticeably more quick in the execution of many of his moves. That’s almost scary to fathom because he is so big. Page did the tope tease into the tranquilo pose like Naito does, which got a big reaction, but Naito put the hammer down on that quickly with a low angle dropkick to the back of Page’s skull. He posed afterwards.

Naito missed his flying forearm smash. He miscalculated the kickback of the ROH ropes and stumbled, but Page saved it and made it look as though he blocked the move intentionally. 

Page used a few thick sounding lariats on Naito, then an elbow suicida through the ropes. Naito used his rope-walking tornado DDT and got only a two-count. He used a top rope frankensteiner, then an inverted DDT for another two. 

Page tried for Rite of Passage a few times but couldn’t swing it. After a big lariat that flipped Naito inside-out, the crowd started chanting “This is awesome.” Page landed a stunning moonsault from the top turnbuckle to the floor onto Naito. There was a big reaction to that and the following Buckshot Lariat. 

Naito countered out of nowhere with Destino and Sinclair stopped his count at three, but it was basically three. I’m not sure what happened here. Whatever the case was, it soured the crowd. It was a major flub that forced the two to work a bit more intensely in these final sequences.

Naito used a combination of hard elbow strikes and finally another, sharper Destino at a higher angle on Page for the win. Fans threw more ribbons into the ring after the win. 

There was a mini-comedy angle between Sinclair and Naito here. The crowd was kind of into that.

I thought this was a G1-level match that was severely hampered by the awkward false finish. I’m not sure if Page forgot to kick out or Sinclair was late, but it had the crowd booing loudly, then going silent until Naito turned up the heat to get a reaction from the crowd and at least gave them a memorable finish.

ROH World Champion Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham defeated IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion KUSHIDA & Chris Sabin, The Kingdom (Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan), and The Young Bucks in a four-way match

Riccaboni put over Lethal’s title streak coming close to beating Samoa Joe’s. All teams but the Kingdom shook hands before the match. 

Chants for KUSHIDA were noticeable. Lethal got a few, too. They started the match off and had a nice exchange that finished with Gresham catching KUSHIDA in mid-air and German suplexing him. 

The crowd sounded confused over who to root for. Sabin entered the match and he and KUSHIDA showed off some impressive tag work. The Kingdom made their way in to work over Sabin; Marseglia did a strange looking splash off the ropes. He reminds me of Doink the Clown, for some reason. 

The Young Bucks were the last team into the match. They immediately launched into their introductory tag offense sequence. 

Lethal did the Chris Jericho springboard dropkick, then he and Gresham did dual tope suicidas. They’re fun as a tag team.

The Bucks did a lot of their high spots on autopilot. Their body movements are automatic.

The New Time Splitters and the Bucks did a planned brawl standoff spot followed by a few apron diving sentons. The movie references the announce team dropped in this part was out of control in the best of ways. 

Lethal catapulted Gresham into Sabin and Gresham rolled through and used a cutter on him, which was much cooler on TV than it sounds here in this sentence.

The Bucks and Lethal/Gresham did a submission spot on the other teams, with everyone doing their signature subs. There were superkicks abound shortly after, but Lethal countered with a number of kicks of his own. He missed a Lethal Injection. 

A thousand things happened at once, and somehow the sequence ended with Sabin doing a tornado DDT off of everyone.

Gresham and Lethal were tremendous in the final sequence of this match. Gresham picked up the huge main event win with a Shooting Star Press on Sabin. 

I didn’t expect that finish, but it felt as though it fit. I felt the need to pay attention to both Gresham and Lethal, who are another pair of wrestlers having fantastic years that have been muffled over the praise of the ridiculous amount of other great matches. 

The main event was chaotic and the crowd was on board for the rapid match pace at around the three hour mark of the card. It’s worth going out of your way to watch this week.

ROH TV results: Six-man tag team gauntlet match

Posted on by Dan Velten

Matches from the promotion’s June show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City continued to be featured on episode #356 of Ring of Honor television.

The show opened with The Kingdom talking about a conspiracy against them and how it doesn’t matter who wins the six-man gauntlet match tonight because their belts aren’t going anywhere.

Kelly Klein defeated Jenny Rose

This was a very basic match and was designed to get Klein over as a monster for her to take on Women of Honor Champion Sumie Sakai, as Klein put a beating on Rose.

Rose landed a nice German suplex and a spear for a near fall, but Klein hit a snap suplex, floated over, and hooked on the guillotine. Referee Todd Sinclair called for the bell after Rose went limp.

Backstage, The Dawgs entered Cody’s locker room. They were looking for money. Cody was quite annoyed and ended up throwing money at them to get them out of his hair.

The Kingdom joined Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana at the announce table for the gauntlet match because the winning team will get a Six-Man Tag Team title shot against them.

Gauntlet match: Alex Shelley, LSG & Jonathan Gresham defeated Shane Taylor & The Dawgs (Rhett Titus & Will Ferrara)

LSG got the hot tag and cleaned house on The Dawgs. He went to the top turnbuckle and did a 450 to the floor. He threw Ferrara back in and got the pin on Ferrara with a roll-up.

Gauntlet match: Alex Shelley, LSG & Jonathan Gresham defeated Silas Young & The Bouncers (Beer City Bruiser & Brian Milonas)

Silas Young and The Bouncers entered next. Gresham and Young exchanged a lot of reversals. The Bouncers took control and worked over Gresham. Gresham landed a DDT on Young and LSG got another hot tag. The Bouncers ended up taking over, but LSG landed a 450 on Milonas for the win.

This brought out the fourth team, SoCal Uncensored.

Gauntlet match: SoCal Uncensored (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky) defeated Alex Shelley, LSG & Jonathan Gresham

SoCal Uncensored took over and laid waste to LSG. Sky hit a monster hurricanrana that allowed Daniels and Kazarian to hit Celebrity Rehab for the win.

This brought out the final team of the gauntlet match, Kenny King, Chuckie T & Eli Isom.

Gauntlet match: Kenny King, Chuckie T & Eli Isom defeated SoCal Uncensored (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky)

Chuckie T ran wild. He tagged in King for some double team moves until Sky cut off King and tagged in Kazarian. King fought for his team and landed a nice spine buster on Kazarian, but his efforts were cut off by Daniels.

Sky did an insane flip dive that left Isom in the ring with Daniels. Isom was able to counter and get a pin on Daniels for the win. So, King, Chuckie T & Isom have earned a shot at The Kingdom’s Six-Man Tag Team titles.

ROH TV results: Matt Taven vs. Ultimo Guerrero

Posted on by Dan Velten

Prior to Best in the World, episode #354 of Ring of Honor television was taped in New York City on June 2.

Kenny King defeated Jonathan Gresham

This match was full of incredible chain wrestling from both men. It seemed like Gresham had a kip up, a pin, or a reversal for everything King threw at him. There were quite a few arm drags from each man, including a nice Mexican arm drag sequence from King, off of which he used some arm submissions to slow down the speedier Gresham.

It looked like Gresham had the upper hand after a long chain of cradle attempts and a moonsault, but King was able to finally get a hold of him and land the Royal Flush slam for the pin.

Josh Woods defeated Facade

Shane Taylor joined Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana to scout Woods. This was a showcase of Woods’ offense, which consisted of some strong striking and some impressive deadlift-style suplexes.

Facade wasn’t able to get much offense in, but he did do some impressive moves using his superior agility. He walked the top rope out to the middle and landed a dropkick, which he followed up with a running double-jump front flip dive. Woods finally countered Facade into a rolling German suplex, which led to a big slam off his shoulders for the pin.

Woods confronted Taylor and wanted to fight him right then, but Taylor said no because he doesn’t fight for free.

Backstage, The Dawgs were looking for a third man so they can enter the six-man tag team gauntlet next week. They went into Shane Taylor’s dressing room and offered him an I.O.U. as payment to join their team. Taylor said no and that they already owe him money — and if they pay him again in change, there will be trouble.

A video package aired hyping the no disqualification match next week between Bully Ray and Cheeseburger.

Matt Taven defeated Ultimo Guerrero

Taven cut off Guerrero and distracted the referee so TK O’Ryan could choke Guerrero. On the outside, Guerrero took over and tossed Taven into the crowd and also threw O’Ryan around for good measure.

Taven took advantage after Guerrero missed a splash from the top to the floor. Taven did a dive to the floor over the top rope but connected with O’Ryan instead. This allowed Guerrero to sit both men on a chair so he could hit them both with a running splash. Guerrero chopped away at Taven until Taven was able to connect with a running knee and a moonsault. Taven put Guerrero on the top turnbuckle and went for a hurricanrana, but Guerrero turned it into a huge powerbomb.

Taven regained control and went back up top, but Guerrero grabbed him. Guerrero was distracted by The Kingdom, which allowed Vinny Marseglia to pop a balloon in Guerrero’s ear. Taven then hit the Climax spike DDT for the pin.

Taven ended the show with a promo about his greatness, and said he will always be better than Guerrero.