– ROH Tag Team Champions The Addiction beat Silas Young & Beer City Bruiser to retain in a great match.
– Fish Tank segment with Mark Briscoe and ACH led to a number one contenders match for the TV title. Briscoe then beat ACH.
– Jay White made his ROH debut and beat Kamaitachi (with Christopher Daniels) by DQ. Postmatch, the Addiction beat them down which brings out the Motor City Machine Guns.
– Jay White & Motor City Machine Guns beat ROH Tag Team Champions The Addiction & Kamaitachi
– Keith Lee & Shane Taylor beat an unknown tag team.
– Dalton Castle beat Roderick Strong in Strong’s farewell ROH match
Both guys hugged afterwards and there were “Thank you Roddy” and “You deserve it” chants post-match. Strong gives an emotional speech, thanking fans for their support and says he hopes to wrestle in ROH again someday.
– Kyle O’Reilly came out for his World Title match with Jay Lethal, but before Lethal can come out, Adam Cole hits the stage and says O’Reilly has skipped him in line and doesn’t deserve this match, and, in fact, he won’t be wrestling at all tonite. Young Bucks sneak attack O’Reilly from behind and the Bullet Club injures his arm and shoulder with a steel chair.
– War Machine beat an unknown tag team.
– Caprice Coleman and the All Night Express beat Cheeseburger & Will Ferrera & Moose
– ROH World Champion Jay Lethal beat the injured Kyle O’Reilly in a great match
Bullet Club attacks both post-match, leading Nigel to declare that Adam Cole will never get a title shot as long as he’s in charge. Lethal asks that he be added to the announced main event.
– Moose beat Mike “P-Dog” Posey. Dijak came out to challenge Moose. Dijak beat Moose, then attacked Stokley Hathaway.
– ROH Champion Jay Lethal & Briscoes beat Bullet Club
After the match, the Bullets incapacitate Lethal in the ropes and Cole cuts off Lethal’s dreads, then violently shave his whole head. Bucks lead the crowd in “That was too sweet” and “You deserve it” (to Lethal) chants to end the show.
Fantastic show, crowd was really into almost all of it.
H returns to traditional PPV Friday night for Best In The World, the seventh such event in company history. The event emanates from Concord, NC, the first time BITW has been held there.
Headlining the show is ROH World Champion Jay Lethal vs. Jay Briscoe, a rematch from last year’s BITW event where Lethal downed Briscoe for the belt in a winner takes all match.
KYLE O’REILLY VS. KAMAITACHI
O’Reilly won with a brainbuster and armbar. Very good technically. The crowd reacted but didn’t go wild. Kamaitachi reufsed to shake hands and left. The crowd isn’t mic’d well as you can see them reactingbut dont’ hear it that well. Kamaitachi didn’t look as impressive as he usually does. But his role was to put O’Reilly over as the whole thing they pushed was how O’Reilly gets a shot at the winner of the main event tomorrow.
SILAS YOUNG VS. ACH
Yeah, we’ve got the same problem with the bad crowd micing whicnh hurts the matches. You can see people are into it and hear it lightly. This was a good match. ACH did a great springobard flip dive. Young missed a springboard move, and ACH won with jumping double knees, a brainbuster and a 450 splash.
They just introudced Jay White at ringside. He looks like a teenager in the crowd.
Mark Briscoe was hilarious on his pre-match interview.
MARK BRISCOE VS. RODERICK STRONG
With Strong leaving, Mark got the pin after a brainbuster and fisherman buster in a really good match. Strong was excellent here and Mark hung with him. Mark has shaved his head but came out with a wig to surprise Strong. Both worked at a hard pace, with Mark doing all kinds of cool stuff and Strong solid with everything he did. Mark survived the sick kick and gutbuster. Mark used a sick kick on Strong. I think if the crowd was mic’d this would have come across as excellent. Fans were chanting “Thank you Roddy” and he was shaking hands on the way out.
WAR MACHINE & MOOSE VS. YOUNG BUCKS & ADAM COLE IN A TORNADO MATCH
Excellent match. Non stop action and the crowd was pretty hot. Finish saw them use the Meltzer driver on Moose and all three kissed each other after winning. We’ll update this later because it was a crazy match with all kinds of big spots and a ton of superkicks. Once again it was hurt by the crowd micing. Hanson in particular did crazy stuff for a guy his size.
CHRISTOPHER DANIELS & FRANKIE KAZARIAN VS. CHRIS SABIN & ALEX SHELLEY FOR THE TAG TITLES
Another good match. Actually this at first had a hard time following the previous match. Kamaitachi came out and attacked Jay White at ringside. They were brawling and distracted ref Paul Turner and Daniels hit Shelley with a low blow and he was out of commission. Daniels & Kazarian then pinned Sabin after the Best Meltzer ever. You’d think at this point I was the booker and had an ego twice the size of Dusty Rhodes. Daniels & Kazarian & Kamaitachi left together so they are forming a group.
STEVE CORINO VS. B.J. WHITMER IN AN UNSACNTIONED FIGHT WITHOUT HONOR
Corino came out to Shinya Hashimoto’s theme music. Corino bleached his hair blond. The commentators said this is a match that nobody wanted to see happen. This match was crazy. It came from another era as Whitmer went to hardway him. Corino bled like crazy. Whitmer juiced and it was a bloodbath. The crowd loved it. Whitmer put Corino through a table with an exploder suplex. They beat each other with broken pieces of the table. The lights went out and Kevin Sullivan showed up, teased hitting Whitmer with the spike but instead spiked Corino and Whitmer pinned him. Because nobody does this kind of match, it really worked. They saved things like tables, never do blood like this and used rolls of quarters but didn’t over do the foreign objects like in TNA where the shots meant nothing.
BOBBY FISH VS. DALTON CASTLE FOR THE TV TITLE
Another good match. Castle dominated. Castle suplexed Fish on his head and they teased Fish being hurt, but he then went for the bang a rang and Fish turned it into a front rolling cradle for the pin.
The All Night Express and Caprice Coleman came out. They came out to Presidential music. Coleman noted they were never defeated for the titles. He claimed they had to pay for this segment. Said each watched each others back and said all three are underrated and underpaid and now they are uniting and are now the group is called The Cabinet. Coleman is the Minister of Information. Rhett Titus said this whole show has been young punks flip flying around and nobody looks like pro wrestlers, said guys need to do bench presses and squats, how the tag champs have no abs and how the Young Bucks skip leg day and keep doing superkicks. Said there is an Olympic gold medalist is selling T-shirts to make wrestling great again. The Cabinet will will make wrestling great, won’t skip leg day and will win all the gold.
JAY LETHAL VS. JAY BRISCOE FOR THE ROH TITLE
Great match. Shorter than you’d think but time got out of control. The crowd loved it, chanting “That was awesome” after the finish. Lethal retained with a diamond cutter and Lethal iinjection. So right after the match ended, they turned up the crowd mic and you could hear how loud they were. If they’d done that during the show every match would have come across better. Both shook hands after the match. Briscoe nearly go the pin earlier with the Lethal injection and Jay driller. Lethal did two tope’s in a row and Briscoe came back with two of his own and a running flip dive. A lot of near falls. Crowd may have been hottest in this match.
Before Ring of Honor’s annual Best in the World PPV takes place tonight in Concord, North Carolina, I talked with ROH’s “Last Real Man” Silas Young about his career, what makes him a man’s man in the wrestling world, and why he doesn’t think ACH measures up to that standard.
Here are a few transcripted highlights:
On how he almost wound up in WWE in the late 2000’s:
I started in 2002 up in the Wisconsin area, and then in 2007, I got offered a developmental deal. I did like a week long training thing at OVW and did a handful of house shows with them. About a month later, I got offered a job in WWE. In the hiring process I was just finishing up getting all of my paperwork and stuff done. I had done all of the drug and cardiovascular testing that they do and all of that stuff had come back fine.
I was just waiting for my passport to come in so I could send that because you have to have a passport when you work for WWE. I was waiting for that to come in and I saw online that OVW’s developmental deal had ended with WWE. I thought ‘Oh boy, that’s not good news. That’s where I’m supposed to be going.’ The next day I got a call that said, ‘We’re not going to be forward with your contract.’ So I kind of got a job there but never really worked there.
On how that didn’t crush his pro wrestling aspirations:
Maybe not so much then, but nowadays, wrestling is so hot right now. There’s so many good places to work. It used to be the big two you know, WWE and WCW (and) maybe ECW. Now you got WWE, TNA, Ring of Honor, you have Lucha Underground, that’s just in the states. You also have places over in Europe – WXW is on par to have 80 shows this year. Rev Pro UK, Preston City Wrestling, tons of really good talent and a lot of work over in Europe, then along with New Japan Pro Wrestling there’s a lot of places to work so it’s awesome right now.
On his time away from Ring of Honor from 2009-2012:
(I was) just doing smaller indie stuff, just trying to wrestle, make a name for myself – that’s about it. You know in wrestling, there’s so many guys trying to get a spot and there’s (only) so many spots. I was just wrestling mainly around the Midwest area and I had occasionally done a few things here and there for EVOLVE at the time but it was mostly just Midwest stuff.
On his friendship with the Beer City Bruiser:
Ring of Honor is built a lot on athletic prowess, the athletic ability of the guys in the ring. You look at Bruiser, and Bruiser is about 6’2″ and probably about 300 pounds. He’s not 300 pounds of muscle, but for being a guy his size, he can really move. People are always really impressed, but he’s not a guy that’s out there trying to impress people. He’s a guy that’s gonna grind someone into the mat and pound them. Plain and simple he’s just going to beat you like a man. You look at the Ring of Honor locker room and he’s the only guy that makes sense to be my tag partner.
On how well received his feud with Dalton Castle was:
I thought that whole thing me and Dalton did together was done really well. I thought everybody came out of it looking really good and the fans enjoyed it. I think Dave Meltzer or Bryan Alvarez was talking about how it was the most entertaining storyline that was going on in wrestling at the time. With all the wrestling in the world to have guys like that say that about what you’re doing is pretty cool.
On why he trying to bring back “real manhood” in wrestling:
I talk a lot about how men aren’t real men nowadays. Right now, the whole superhero movie (thing), I don’t know whether it’s DC or Marvel or maybe both of them are putting out movies, it’s a real hot subject right now. People love it. You can’t go anywhere without seeing some dude wearing a Spider-Man or a Batman t-shirt. That’s been my gripe – men don’t wear superhero t-shirts. Men don’t sit and argue about what superhero would beat what superhero in a fight.
On how he plans to teach that lesson to ACH at ROH Best in the World:
Basically, what’s going to happen with ACH is he’s just going to learn it’s not all fun and games. Life isn’t all about video games and action hero movies, and we’re going to see how far his video games get him when he steps in the ring with me at Best in the World.
On what’s next if he defeats ACH on Friday in Concord:
“For the rest of the year, I’m looking to just get out and wrestle as many places as possible. In the last few months, I’ve been fortunate enough to get to go over and wrestle in Germany, England and Canada, so just keep traveling, keep having good matches, get to wrestle as many new places as possible. I’m getting to go to Newfoundland in a month and a half, I’ve never been there before, so that should be cool. That’s about it. Get out, work, grind, meet different people work different guys, that’s the goal for me.”
See what happens with Silas Friday night at ROH’s Best In The World ppv. Our live coverage begins at 8 PM EST.
On the go-home show leading to Best in the World on pay-per-view, Ring of Honor television from Toronto features ROH all-stars vs. Bullet Club in an eight-man tag team match. Elsewhere, Tomohiro Ishii circles his prey and Steve Corino threatens BJ Whitmer. Also on the show, Dalton Castle shines ahead of him challenging Bobby Fish for the TV title at the PPV.
Dalton Castle (with the Boys) beat Gedo
They did some comedy early on in the match. At one point at ringside the Boys began fanning Gedo, angering Dalton. He charged out after him. It was all a ploy as in getting the babyface to chase the heel around the ring. As Gedo slid into the ring, he cut off Dalton in one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Castle fired up moments later though Gedo countered the bang-a-rang. Gaining revenge for being dupped earlier in the match, the Boys smacked Gedo with punches and he fed into Dalton for the finish. After a bang-a-rang, Dalton covered him for the pinfall.
In a backstage promo, Adam Cole promised he would not get involved in the main event at Best in the World. He also promised to be the next ROH world champion.
Tomohiro Ishii beat Will Ferrara
Far from a squash match, the story was still the bout was a mismatch. Ferrara got a lot of offense and even got a nearfall on a small package. Even though Ferrara would knock him down, the “Stone Pitbull” would rise again to pummel his smaller prey. Ishii would hoist him up to deliver a vertical drop brainbuster for the pin.
Afterwards, Ishii was at ringside ranting at announcer Kevin Kelly in Japanese. As Ishii stormed off, Kevin said, “There you have it.”
In an in-ring promo, Steve Corino cut a go-home promo vowing to rid ROH of BJ Whitmer at Best in the World. Corino talked about all the evil things he’d done throughout his career. “I am what I am,” he kept saying. He tried to change his ways, fell in love and got married. That was all a fairytale he said. He is what he is. Corino said he was an evil man. He called Whitmer “trash” and mentioned all the evil things Whitmer did. He then said after the Fight Without Honor at BITW, Whitmer would no longer be in ROH as Corino will “take out the trash.”
Jay Lethal & Roderick Strong & the Briscoes beat Bullet Club (Matt Jackson & Kenny Omega & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa)
Kenny Omega subbed for Nick Jackson in the match. Despite being pre-taped, no mention of the substitute until just before the match began. A subplot of the match was Jay Briscoe teaming with Jay Lethal as they will meet in the world title main event at Best in the World. However, they hardly teased dissension in this match. Also notable was Roderick Strong in the match in what could be one of his last appearances on ROH TV before departing the company.
Lots of tags and lots of action in the eight-man tag match itself. Almost too much to call. In the most dramatic showdown of the match, Lethal squared off with Omega for a heated exchange. Everybody exchanged moves in rapid fire succession in the closing moments. Eventually, Jay Briscoe executed the Jay driller on Tanga Loa to score the deciding pinfall.
Closing out the show was a series of promos hyping Best in the World which airs tonight on PPV. Our Dave Meltzer will have coverage starting at 8 PM EST.
Ahead of this Friday’s ROH Best in the World ppv, Ring of Honor announced Wednesday that “Mr. ROH” Roderick Strong would be leaving the promotion following Saturday’s TV tapings.
Strong has been a part of ROH off and on since 2003, and has been one of their longest-tenured performers outside of a brief TNA run. He and Austin Aries held the ROH Tag Team Titles, and he won both the TV and World titles in the company as well. In the ROH announcement, he didn’t list any reasons for leaving the promotion.
Over the past few years, he has had some outstanding matches with New Japan stars including classics with Okada, Nakamura, and Tanahashi. With WWE hiring like crazy for the roster split, one has to wonder if WWE is in his future or if he will return to TNA, where his ROH Generation Next team briefly reformed. New Japan would also be a fantastic match for his style, although one would think that if that was his goal, he would just continue with ROH.
Dave Meltzer & Bryan Alvarez will have more on this news on the Wednesday night edition of Wrestling Observer Radio.
ROH announced Wednesday that they will be returning to New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom for its biggest show of the year as it will become the company’s regular New York City location.
The 15th Final Battle in ROH history will be held there on Friday, December 2nd. They had been running the venue up until 2014, but moved out due to a significant increase in the cost.
ROH had hinted moving away from frequent ROH show location Terminal 5 as it was recognized was too small for them for big events. It was rumored at the time that the company would either be moving to the Manhattan Center or the Hammerstein, both part of the same complex that is around the corner from Madison Square Garden. They’ve run the Hammerstein before, packing the venue frequently.
The company held Final Battle at the Hammerstein for six straight years (2008-2013) before bringing the event to Terminal 5 in 2014. They ran the former ECW Arena in Philadelphia, PA, for the show last year, headlined by ROH Champion Jay Lethal vs. AJ Styles.
Ring of Honor television from Toronto was another installment from the War of the Worlds tour featuring ROH vs. NJPW. A loaded lineup on this episode included another stellar matchup between Kushida and Kyle O’Reilly in the main event. Elsewhere, Tetsuya Naito collided with Moose and Jushin Liger teamed up with Cheeseburger.
Mark Briscoe provided guest commentary alongside announcer Kevin Kelly and matchmaker Nigel McGuinness. Several times throughout the show Mark said he felt Roderick Strong continues to disrespect him. He and Roddy are set for a match at the Best in the World pay-per-view with Chicken seemingly set for a singles push.
Later in the show, Roddy strolled out to ringside. He confronted Nigel about having to team with Mark in an eight-man tag match. The match (Briscoes & Strong & Jay Lethal vs. Bullet Club) airs next week on ROH TV, which was plugged several times throughout the show.
In another sign of disrespect to Mark, as Roddy argued with Nigel he at first never acknowledged Mark until calling him the “Briscoe that doesn’t matter.” Mark got in his face and Nigel stepped in to break things up. Roderick backed away while also flapping his arms insinuating Mark was chicken.
The show itself opened with the entrance of a former pro football player turned pro wrestler who was in the news recently as speculation continues about his future with ROH. He was followed by the current IWGP heavyweight champion representing Los Ingobernables de Japon, who sauntered to the ring for a non-title match.
Tetsuya Naito beat Moose (with Stokely Hathaway)
On commentary, Nigel noted that Naito had one knee taped up. Naito also reportedly became ill on this tour. He still had a good match. Moose more than held his own too. Early on when Moose started signaling for the “Moose” chants, Natio spat in his face. Moose hit a dropkick then also dropkicked Naito as he was perched on the top turnbuckle sending Naito sailing out to the floor.
Moments later, Naito teased doing a dive only to mock Moose. When Naito did eventually jump over the ropes for a plancha, Moose caught him and gave him a fallaway slam into the guardrail. Naito cut him off and did a flurry of moves before mocking Moose again. After a commercial break, Moose fired up looking to make a comeback.
When Naito executed a hurricanrana off the top turnbuckle, Moose miraculously hulked up and delivered a lariat that turned Naito inside out for a nearfall. Moose suplexed Naito upside down into the turnbuckles. Naito countered and applied a Koji clutch and Moose got a rope break. Moose also kicked out after getting dropped with a swinging DDT. However, Moose eventually fell victim to a Destino and Naito covered him for the pinfall.
ANX cut a promo vowing to “make wrestling great again.”Of course, they are spoofing a certain WWE Hall of Famer currently running for president. During their entrance as part of their supposed new campaign, they did their best Jimmy Hart in bringing megaphones to the ring.
The backstory of the match was ANX had previously attacked Cheeseburger and beat him down so he enlisted the help of his mentor, Liger, in gaining revenge.ANX began pummeling Liger and Cheeseburger at the outset. Liger and Cheeseburger fought back. ANX got heat on Cheeseburger for awhile until Liger came in off a hot tag. ANX dispatched Liger to the outside and did some double-team offense on Cheeseburger. They finished off Cheeseburger and Titus pinned him.
In the weekly Bullet Club backstage promo, Adam Cole was mad about the main event at the next PPV being a world title rematch with Jay Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal. Cole claimed he should be in the match. He also objected to the camera operator and the sound engineer so the Young Bucks took over those duties as Cole basically vowed Bullet Club would take part in some angle on the PPV.
Silas Young interrupted the show to cut a promo on ACH. Silas ranted about his usual subjects pertaining to manliness and accused ACH of dressing like he was in a Japanese cartoon. He began arguing with a fan at ringside who was wearing a ACH t-shirt. Silas shoved him and security grabbed Silas. During the commotion, ACH ran in and did a wild springboard dive onto Silas and the security team. Silas Young vs. ACH is set for the PPV.
Kyle O’Reilly beat Kushida
Much like their previous matches, this was outstanding. From their matwork to their selling and into the highsports, they told a great story of O’Reilly finally being triumphant. In a pre-tape promo beforehand, O’Reilly talked about waiting an entire year for that moment.
Kushida began working an arm on O’Reilly only for Kyle to counter and work a leg on Kushida. O’Reilly applied a knee bar and went for an achilles lock. Kushida got a rope break but really sold his leg thereafter. Even though they did some highspots, they still kept selling and at times did so subtly and sold throughout the match.
Just before a commercial, O’Reilly dropped Kushida with a knee strike. After the break, Kushida was in the midst of a hope spot when O’Reilly turned him inside out with a lariat. Kushida came back with a brainbuster moments later. Kushida went back to work on the arm just before the action spilled outside.
As they fought at ringside, O’Reilly sat Kushida down in a chair. O’Reilly then dove off the apron for an attempted flying knee. In the same big spot they did in one of their previous matches, Kushida jumped out of the chair and caught the flying O’Reilly in an armbar as he crashed to the floor. Back in the ring, they both fell in a heap after dueling kicks and forearm strikes.
They rose once more for a few more final exchanges. O’Reilly momentarily caught Kushida in a guillotine. Kushida countered into a kimura lock. O’Reilly then maneuvered that into cradling Kushida for the deciding pinfall.
– Cheeseburger defeated Some Canadian Guy With A Fanny Pack. Cheeseburger was super over. The guy’s fanny pack was more over than the guy himself.
Main Show:
– Steve Corino promo on Whitmer, who was on commentary.
– ROH Tag Team Champions The Addiction defeated Kamaitachi and Juice Robinson via Best Meltzer Ever. Juice was super over.
– Dalton Castle defeated Will Ferrera via Deadlift German Suplex.
– Motor City Machine Guns defeated Lio Rush and Moose. This was a fun match. Rush is very impressive. MCMG put Lio over after the match by giving him the ring for the crowd to cheer him.
– Donovan Dijak defeat Trent Baretta. Prince Nana accompanied Dijak to the ring. Dijak is a decent heel.
– Four Corner Survival: Kyle O’Reilly defeated Roderick Strong, Michael Elgin and ACH via submission. This match ruled. Every sequence was jaw dropping. Elgin and Kyle had a great sequence of Germans and kicks. Roddy was great, per usual, as was ACH.
– BJ Whitmer promo. Two random dudes brought out a hog-tied Corino.
– War Machine destroyed two local talents.
– ROH TV Champion Bobby Fish defeated Rocky Romero via leg submission. Great match. Fish is awesome. Dalton Castle was on commentary for this match and they had a stare down after the match.
– Beer City Bruiser and Silas Young defeated The Briscoes and ANX in Tag Wars finals. BCB and Silas hit their finishers on ANX. Crowd celebrated like Milwaukee won the World Series.
– Colt Cabana and ROH Champion Jay Lethal defeated The Young Bucks via Double Lethal Injection. Crowd was super hot for this match. Bucks looked good after returning from injury. They hit an Indie Taker, but no Meltzer Driver. No disrespect to the Bucks, but they looked gassed and/or didn’t want to risk another injury. After the match, Colt had Lethal’s title and hinted he wanted a rematch. Lethal grabbed his belt and left.
– Bullet Club member Adam Cole is in the hospital with pneumonia and has been pulled from tonight’s show and Sunday’s show in Milwaukee, WI. Will Ferrara takes his place to face Chris Sabin tonight.
– Dalton Castle def. Juice Robinson
Lots of comedy early on. It got more physical as it went on and lots of back and forth. They shake hands after the match, and TV Champion Bobby Fish comes out for a live Fish Tank with Dalton. Dalton requests for it to be a sitdown interview but they don’t have any chairs. Dalton has 2 more Boys come out and they form human chairs for them to sit on. Lots of comedy. They promise to remain friends after their match at Best in the World, but Fish says he doesn’t see Dalton as a champion, making him storm off. Neither one came off like a heel.
– Chris Sabin def. Will Ferrara
Decent match. Daniels comes out for commentary to lead into the next match.
– Silas Young/Beer City Bruiser def. War Machine and Moose/Lio Rush
Excellent match and easily the match of the night with nonstop action. Rush was the star despite being there to take the pin and the crowd came alive after being dead nearly the whole show so far.
– ACH def. Alex Shelly
Solid match. ACH cut a promo afterwards and calls Shelley one of his idols. Shelley puts him over to bring the show into intermission.
– Steve Corino comes for an interview after intermission. He cuts a promo on BJ Whitmer, who has been on commentary all night. He says a lot of nothing.
– Donovan Dijak def. Cheeseburger
About the match you’d expect with Cheeseburger getting little bursts of offense in only to be cut off seconds later and tossed around. Kaz’s turn to do commentary for the next tag match.
– ANX def. The Young Bucks and RPG Vice
Both ANX and RPG Vice work heel over the returning Bucks who haven’t missed a beat. King stole the pin on Trent after he got hit with a Meltzer Driver and said ANX was going to make wrestling great again.
– Michael Elgin def. Kamaitachi
Not a lot of people in the crowd were familiar with Kamaitachi, but got behind him when he was on offense. They raise each other’s arms after the match.
– Daniels comes out for one last time and cuts a promo hyping the main event. Quick promo, just some cheap heat and out come the tag teams.
– Briscoe Brothers def. ROH Champion Jay Lethal/Roderick Strong and ReDRagon
Fans were tired out by this point but got back into it towards the end. Bucks interfere and interrupt the Lethal Injection while Jay hits the Jay Driller on Strong to end the show.
Overall, there were no bad matches. The attendance seemed down from the last few shows run in Hopkins. No return date announced.
Veda wins with a back suplex while Mary is seated on top rope. Good enough match to warm up.
Kelly Klein and BJ Whitmer come out. Klein gives Mary a Michinoku-driver like move and BJ harasses the ring announcer to announce Klein as ‘the only woman that matters’ in Women of Honor.
Jay Briscoe comes out and tells the crowd the ROH officials are concerned about his health and he is not supposed to wrestle tonight. Roderick Strong comes out to tell him it is better that way and Jay should take the night off. Of course, Jay doesn’t accept that reasonable offer, so the main event is still on.
– Caprice Coleman vs ACH
Good match. Caprice yelled out ‘Buddy Landel!’ and proceeded to do a Landel-style elbow off the ropes. Maybe a dozen people in the audience got it. ACH won with the 360 splash.
– Stevie Richards vs Mark Briscoe
OK match. Mark with a DVD like move and then FroggyBo off the top for the pin.
– Beer City Bruiser (w/ Silas Young) vs Cheezburger
What you’d expect. BCB wins with his finisher. Silas mocks Cheeseburger and expresses his disgust for the crown and ACH and CB. Silas picks CB up over his shoulders, but ACH makes the save.
– ANX vs Motor City Machine Guns
Fun match. Good team spots. Heat on Alex Shelley. Finish breaks down and MCMG do a double team buster move on Rhett ( I think) for the pin. MCMG are pretty over.
– Adam Page vs. ROH Champion Jay Lethal
Big pop for Bullet Club, and a good pop for Lethal. Crowd somewhat favored Lethal during the match. Back and forth action. Lots of leg selling by Jay. Page ripped off his knee brace at one point. Big pop for a Young Bucks run in. Superkicks on Lethal, but he kicks out. Another attempt and Lethal ducks and Page gets it. Then Lethal diverts one Buck’s superkick into the other Buck. Follows with a Lethal Injection on both a Buck and Page at the same time. Good for the pin. Really good match.
– Intermission had BJ Whitmer babbling. Crowd wouldn’t let him talk at all. “We want wrestling” chant.
– Dalton Castle (w/The Boys) vs Kamaitachi
Solid match. Fun spots w/ Castle and the Boys. Crowd into it. Castle w/ a bridging suplex for the win.
– Lio Rush vs Adam Cole
The rest of the Bullet Club came out w/ Cole. He then sent them off saying he didn’t need them. Really good match. Near falls and hope spots had me believing Rush would win it, especially after he finally hit a frog splash. But Cole caught him with the knee brain buster for a pin. Afterwards, he shook Lio’s hand and called hm the future of ROH. Then he hugged Lio … but it was just a cover for a Superkick party. Bucks were out and nailed Rush and then all 3 did. MCMG ran them off. Best match on the card.
– War Machine vs. ROH Tag Champions The Addiction (Daniels/Kazarian) in a no DQ title match
Early part was just WM mauling The Addiction with hairs and trash cans. Then they got Hanson taped outside to the corner and Rowe taped inside by his legs to bottom rope. Lots of offense on Rowe, but couldn’t pin him since feet on ropes! Daniels cut him loose and they tried to pin. Rowe kicks out. Powers up and frees Hanson. More brawling. They hit finisher on Kazrian, but Daniels saved. Then War Machine decided to get the tables.
Before they can, two big guys (Shane Taylor and Keith Lee) run in and demolish WM with power bomb moves. The Addiction recover and give Hanson a double suplex with a belly landing on the table for the pin.
– Jay Briscoe vs Rodrick Strong
Lots of heat on Strong. Back and forth match. Ref bump and Jay got visual pin. Revived ref and hit the Jay Driller, but only got 2. A short exchange and Strong hit his suplex into front codebreaker like finish for a surprise victory. Solid match.
