ROH on Destination America 8/12/15 Review
1. Watanabe vs. ACH
"My god how long will Watanabe be on this side of the pond!?" That was the thought that I thought, although perhaps my thoughts were more vulgar and disappointed. Watanabe has been horrible in his ROH appearances. He gets tons of chants because...I guess his Japanese birth gives him workrate credibility? It certainly can't be because they enjoy his matches. But you know? This match was a ton of fun. Watanabe did not look great, but he hung in there, and ACH was fucking killer. We had an extended dumb "HIT MY CHEST" spot, and Watanabe's chops looked and sounded dull, but ACH pretended they were very painful, and then made up for Watanabe's by throwing thunderous ones of his own. ACH dug down deep in this one and drug Watanabe's ass through all of this, breaking out wild shit like a no hands twisting moonsault to the floor, and massive (and well timed) penalty kick on the apron, and then being a generous and giving partner by taking a nasty flip over German on the floor, and a stupid fisherman buster. ACH hits an impossibly snug 450 to end it. So, we had a bunch of nonsensical tide turns, with both guys trading off without much thought to it making sense; but shit looked good, and my eyeballs loved it much more than I would have expected when Watanabe walked through the curtain.
2. J. Diesel & Donovan Dijak vs. War Machine
I know wrestling is wrestling is wrestling and all, but ROH actually bills J. Diesel as 5'10". So...that would make Truth Martini about 6'2" and Dijak like 7'6", with War Machine being around 7' each? Look, I get it wrestling. But even 5'8" is a MASSIVE stretch for Diesel. You can pause at any time and see Diesel comes up to Martini's nose. And a couple weeks ago Martini was clearly smaller than ODB. Also apparently War Machine only outweighs them by 20 total pounds. I'm....having a hard time believing any of this. I still like Diesel even though LIES, and my favorite part of this was probably the early corner punch exchange between he and Rowe. I loved Diesel's big right to the chin. Hanson's offense really annoys me, with the cartwheel being the shitty tasting icing. His clubbing shots to the chest are so wimpy. I am not much looking forward to a Lethal/Hanson singles.
I think I would have more interest in a Corino/Whitmer match if I had never seen a moment of the build up. If I just saw it on paper I would probably go "oh I could see that being good". But seeing how bad Corino has been in almost every second of these segments is just sapping any interest. Whitmer has been surprisingly good at goading him, yet Corino flubs almost every single reaction.
3. The Kingdom (Michael Bennett & Matt Taven) vs. reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly)
This started out pretty dodgy and it's badness kinda peaked when Taven whiffed a flying kick by a couple of feet, O'Reilly sold it anyway and Kelly yelled "Nailed it!!" Then Taven slightly crazes a swanton. Things were looking bad. BUT, the home stretch picked up nicely. O'Reilly's strike combos actually looked nice, and I loved when O'Reilly was going for some sort of rebound lariat and Bennett super kicked him from the floor. It was timed great, I didn't see it coming, and then a piledriver laid him out for the rest of the match. Awesome spot. Bennett throws some nice elbows, Taven wasn't entirely miserable after his peak level of being miserable, Fish generously sold a flimsy indecisive spear from Bennett and the Hail Mary never really looks that great as Taven always pusses out of the spike part of the piledriver, but the piledriver part always looks nice. A good home stretch can really save a match, and hey, this episode wasn't half bad! The last couple weeks have been full bad! This was very much not bad at all.
Labels: ACH, Bobby Fish, Donovan Dijak, J. Diesel, Kyle O'Reilly, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, Raymond Rowe, reDRagon, Ring of Honor, ROH, Todd Hanson, War Machine, Watanabe
posted by EricR @ 5:00 PM
3 Comments:
War Machine is growing on me, but it might be because any fat guy in ROH is such a change of pace, in that one doesn't have to suspend disbelief of a fat landing on you, as opposed to a 120 pounder slapping his thigh.
I could not get past the first 45 seconds of the main event.
I please note that I was on ACH's dick way back when he was in that Kansas City indie.
That's the thing with War Machine, they look cool and fat and kinda lumpy, but all their offense that should be the easiest (fat guy lets his fat fall on skinny opponent) always comes up looking like they held WAY back. Legdrops where they're afraid to let their thigh touch the opponent, sentons where their shoulder grazes an opponents tummy. This is all mainly Hanson's problem, where 95% of his body is crashing into the mat and he barely makes contact with his opponent. It all just looks bad. All of his burly power offense is either misguided (big clothesline, but set up with a cartwheel?) or just wimpy (those horrible blows to the chest). Rowe appeals much more to me. I hate lumping the two of them together. Hanson is the problem.
And that main started off baaad. But the stretch got good. Taven is really really awful, so you just kinda hope he doesn't blow it. But the order of everything in the last 3 minutes felt correct. Usually the move order and build feels either nonexistent or just wrong, but here it felt like they actually got it right, regardless of some awful execution. Nice order and build can go a long way.
Sometimes ACH uses his athleticism for evil (like almost any time I've seen him in PWG) and thus comes off more like AR Fox than Willie Mack, but matches like this one are what make me a fan. Watanabe has been one of the worst, and ACH made me love a Watanabe match. Heart.
Watanabe is your New Japan guy who doesn't work stiff enough for strong style, thus making him the new Yuji Nagata. He should start saluting this.
I await this weeks Paragon Pro review. Our Wes Brisco Mania CANNOT BE COMTAINED!
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