Ring of Honor on Destination America 7/1/15 Review

1. The Addiction (Frankie Kazarian & Christopher Daniels) vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada

Well, this was very long. Also, this was not very good. Nothing about it was even actively bad, they just did not need this much time for what they ended up putting out there. So...a lot of people really seem to like Okada. Is it because he's Japanese? His popularity kind of confuses me. For people that like moves, a lot of his moves don't really look that great. His matches never seen to have a very coherent build. Is it because he's a good looking guy who sometimes cocks his eyebrows in charming ways? Is this like when people were into Naruki Doi? I am still a Gedo fan but really he just mostly throws punches now. I like his punches quite a bit, and always like a guy who throws a crisp jawbreaker, but watching him take a bunch of Daniels/Kazarian offense doesn't do a whole lot for me.  Kazarian and Daniels don't look bad at all here, just really forgettable. Kazarian threw a nice high kick on Gedo, their leg sweep/clothesline looked nice, but there wasn't enough here. Also, Corino and Kelly are flat out bad on commentary. It's shocking how much they just disappear during matches. They literally talk as if they barely pay attention to matches. They rarely call the action, just occasionally point out something that is likely happening. It will be quiet and then Kelly will make an observation like "Gedo is looking to tag in..." Also this match had alllllll the fucking Red Shoes horseshit smeared all over it. If you've been looking for visual examples of why Red Shoes is terrible, look no further. This guy talks with his hands so fucking much and it's horrible. So horrible. It's like he's rehearsing for a loud hammy, brassy drag queen production of the "Snap out of it!" scene from Moonstruck. You guys, I hate him so much.

2. Adam Page vs. Watanabe

Ehh, this wasn't much. We're joined in progress with Colby Corino on the floor helping Page cheat.  Colby is not acknowledged at all by Steve Corino, which I suppose it not too surprising considering Kelly/Corino just disappear constantly on commentary. If you tried watching some of this show with your eyes closed you would have no clue what was happening. A couple moves will happen and nobody will say anything, and then they'll go for that same move that wasn't called and Kelly will just yell "AGAIN!" or they'll do some moves on the floor and instead of calling any of what's happening Kelly will just yell "ON THE FLOOR!" They're quite passively terrible, and now that I've noticed them I'm afraid I won't be able to stop. Fans seem way into Watanabe and I really have to assume it's because he's Japanese and wrestles in Japan and is therefore "legit". At least this match he doesn't do any of his awful Church Lady selling. He throws these awful missed clotheslines that look like he's throwing a baseball. I mean that arm is coming nowhere close to Page's head. Page has that bland level of indy polish, where he takes things fine but does nothing very memorable. Here he takes a nice bump to the floor, runs into a boot nicely, but then hits some sort of goofy shooting star shoulder block thing off the apron and you just go "yep, that's indy!" Next.

3. Adam Cole vs. AJ Styles

Cole is back from his shoulder injury and is sporting a new post injury dad bod that was all the rage for one day on Facebook. Cole works a little like James Storm, moves similarly, even gets distracted by his own long hair in the same ways. This match was pretty bland but going moving pretty well down the stretch run. I'm getting real tired of moves done on your own knee. The brainbuster on your own fucking knee is just needlessly cute. I mean, a brainbuster drops a guy on his fucking head, on the mat! That's a hard thing to make more painful. Is getting sloppily dropped on the guy's knee really so much worse than being driven full force into the mat? It just looks silly. And speaking of silly, Cole needs to come up with a better way to set up his flipping piledriver. He went for it a couple times but it was avoided by Styles, so Cole just ended up doing these dainty little bunny hops off the middle rope. Cole must have a steel plate in his cranium as he gets dumped on his dome a few times and they never seem to have much impact on the match, including Styles dropping him with a nasty brainbuster on the apron, and later on a couple of piledrivers. A couple of the reversal segments looked good in here, my favorite being Cole ducking out of the way of the Pele Kick to hit a superkick of his own. The Pele Kick rarely misses so it's nice seeing somebody actually scout it.

This whole show was inoffensive. I don't think anything was very good, don't think anything was very bad. It also wasn't memorable. If I wasn't writing this show up as I watched it I would be fucked.  This was definitely an hour long show that featured professional wrestling.