AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/27 - 12/3

AEW Collision 12/2/23

Bryan Danielson vs. Eddie Kingston

MD: As reviewers, critics even, it's not our job to find absolute truth. There are always going to be things we'll never know when it comes to input. This is pro wrestling, a carny, manipulative, secretive brotherhood, right? And that's ok. We're not going for absolute truth; we're going for relative truth. We're putting this match in context of its peers and of every other match we've ever come across. We're going for personal truth. We're trying to express what the match meant to us, what sensation it created. This is one place we're at odds with Dave, who tends to look at only the moment and for the moment. We're not looking for absolute truth but that doesn't mean there aren't patterns over time, even since the beginning of time, and that doesn't mean there aren't universal truths. We're not even looking to get as close to perfect or true as possible, but every truth we can discern or reasonably and consistently contrive can create a wedge that we can use to force understanding and meaning. It's a messy and dirty business where we are the blind men touching the elephant, but that doesn't make the exercise futile. That's art for you, right?

Any bits of input that we do come up with, or any lens that we are given to help see things through, is overall helpful. Regal's podcast, much like his AEW run, now feels like a fever dream, but it happened. It was quirky and meandering and often repetitive, but occasionally you'd get bits of real wisdom and which, as someone who writes about this stuff, can help to interpret it. Everything helps. In this case, he explained his idea of selling, which wasn't necessarily selling at all, but "reacting," the notion that if he is well enough trained and experienced and his opponent is the same, they can just go out there and naturally react to one another and create a match.

After Kingston vs. Danielson, I saw a lot of comments about how this was the twilight of an era and that we wouldn't see the likes of these two again. I also saw people going so far as to break down the strategy of the match, like I might do, and I just don't think there's the need here. This was entirely about two fully formed, three-dimensional, entirely fleshed out entities or characters or human beings reacting to one another. You can look at any single exchange, simple or complicated, from the initial feeling out kicks (and goading move to the ropes) by Danielson to Eddie's huge chop to Danielson's double leg, all the way to the more complex bits of the finishing stretch like Danielson going for the knee but slowed down by having to adjust his eyepatch or Kingston being unable to finish his escalating end sequence by being unable to hit the power bomb and having to go for the Uraken again.

At every single one of those moments, you can see the emotion driving it in the faces of the wrestlers. It's five hundred individual decisions, shaped by the entirety of their lives, by how they feel about one another, by how they feel in this moment, by their position in the tournament, by what they have to lose and what they have to gain. Every single decision they make in the ring is shaped by Danielson coming off of two injuries and living on borrowed time for his career due to the promise to his child and in a tournament they made for him and by Kingston who had reached his goal and now had put his belts on the line in order to create something beautiful that should have forever been beyond his reach only to now be in a hole and increasingly desperate. Every decision was driven by all of that, and so much more, including Danielson's feelings about Kingston and his comments and Kingston's feelings about Danielson, which were strong but not as strong as his feelings about Claudio or Punk or Hero, but now, coming out of this match, will be so much more so. And of course, it all evolved throughout the match by what was happening in the match itself.

Here's the cool thing for me. I think that every single member of the roster in AEW should study this, and guys on the cusp, like Swerve, or guys in a true moment of transition in their lives, like Copeland, should study it more than anyone else, despite their experience and success. I think that, and I study it too, but I have no idea how they do it. You can understand how someone tucks their head in on a spot or how they open themselves up to a reversal in a shootstyle hold. But channeling all that you are into a match like this? It's the middle ground between method acting, a complicated dance routine, and pure audience driven improv. It's a contradiction by definition. How do they tap into so much humanity, have it feel so honest and earnest, and still have it be coherent and compelling and meaningful? One some level, it's implicit logic, the notion that if these characters are real and they make the decision they would make in the moment at any moment, then a compelling story would naturally present itself. But you can just read that and see how flimsy it is. It's not plotting or planning. It's not performing or emotion. It's not dancing and reacting. It's magic. And I can't wait for the next one and there better be a next one.

Ring of Honor 10/30/23

Eddie Kingston vs. Lee Johnson

MD: This was taped before both of Kingston's tournament matches, if I'm not mistaken, and it was a fun proving ground match with "ace" Kingston against an up and comer. We got those same sort of reactions out of Eddie for the initial handshake, when Johnson got an armdrag or a dropkick out of nowhere, when he got a two-count on him deep in the match, in the most match handshake when Johnson kind of came in for a hug. You could see it on Eddie's face and hear it in his silent voice. "Yeah, ok, sure, we're doing this I guess."

What I liked about it most of all, however, was the way that he carried his mass and controlled the center of the ring. Johnson had to come to him. Sometimes it worked like with that dropkick or the jumping DDT. A lot of times, he ran right into a belly to belly or into the half and half that set up the Uraken at the end. It's what Jose Lothario did. It's what Lawler often did, holding court in the center of the ring like a force of nature. Eddie, in a lot of these proving ground matches, is bigger than his opponent, both in stature and in star-power and it allows him to control the match in an interesting way.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 11/13 - 11/19, Part 2

Ring of Honor 11/16/23

Eddie Kingston vs Dalton Castle

MD: It's tough to work off of just one or two data points. I picked up a definite impression from Eddie between the Rocky match (wrong title, same idea), the Komander match, the Angelico match, but these weren't the only matches he had in that period and something like the Suzuki match was exactly what you'd expect it to be, right? These other defenses have been something new and I've discussed them as such. It's been the debut of Ace Champion Kingston, shifting gears to operate with more of a "sports/competition" feel than just the endless weight of grudges and enemies and grievances that Eddie always carries with him to such great outcome.

We've hit the point now where I think that even if it's not intentional, it's undeniable. I'm not getting "fighting spirit" from this stuff, so much as I'm getting "real sports feel," in the same way I do from 86 NJPW with the UWF guys or from old World of Sport. That's not to say the details are the same, but I'm getting that same sense of gamesmanship and of competition. That it's playing out with Eddie, who is such a heartfelt and distinctive wrestler, and with such variety from opponent to opponent, while still achieving that same overall effect, is providing me with something I can't get anywhere else in modern wrestling and, to be honest, I'm not sure I've gotten quite this way from any wrestling ever.

For this match, much of that was driven by the strategies at play. Dalton Castle, not unlike Eddie in theory though completely unlike Eddie in the details, is entirely unique. You could compare him to someone like Goldust or Orange Cassidy, but given how he carries himself, a better comparison might be a Terry Funk or a Roddy Piper (or yes, an Athena). With someone like Cassidy, it's about mind games and getting an advantage. Dalton is more of a force of nature, a fey creature out of A Midsummer's Night Dream, some primal fairy lord. He operates on his own set of rules, but they're nothing any mere human could ever understand. You can't treat him like a rational actor; at any point he might do something you'd never expect. That is who he is. What he is? In the ring? An amazing creature of leverage and perseverance, someone who can get under you and heft you over at any moment.

He came in to wrestle, and Eddie, the ace, the champion, had him scouted. He'd been training for someone like Castle and and was his equal on the mat, could match him suplex for suplex. So what did Dalton do? He hit any number of nasty back elbows. He couldn't outchop Eddie, couldn't out punch him, but he could spin backwards and jab one of the hardest parts of the body into Eddie's skull. It worked for a while too, but Eddie can spin around and knock your soul out of your body at any point too, and ultimately, he did just that. Dalton, an entity strong enough to have overcome a broken back to win his greatest victory, held on, but Eddie kept coming; that what he does. That's what a champion does. That's what the pillars did.

So Eddie overcame, beating back the unnatural, holding the forces of entropy and chaos at bay one more night, carrying the weight of the company on his shoulders and not at all afraid to tell it to the world. And we got another interesting, one-of-a-kind defense out of him. And I have enough data points to tell you that this is a trend, and it's the most interesting one in wrestling. I can't wait to see where it goes next.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/30 - 11/5 (BONUS)

Ring of Honor 11/2/23

Athena vs Mercedes Martinez

MD: One part of AEW's booking I am absolutely vibing with is what Athena's up to in Ring of Honor. A week ago this time, I thought I'd be writing about her vs Mercedes on Monday but then they snuck a few matches in on Collision and I'm not going to say no to Dustin. That said, I thought I'd add in a bonus this week. The only reason that Athena, given the generational run that she's on, isn't the fifth Finger is that I just think my reviews of her matches would be repetitive. It's me, not them. She's great. There are variations in opponents, even just down to how and when she works the magic forearm into the matches or how her opponents deal with the left handed handshake that she starts every match with, those things, but the general story would be the same: she's an amazing midpoint between character and athleticism. There's only so many ways I can say that, but I haven't said it for a while, so let me do it here.

I never knew quite what to make of Ember Moon. She had that athleticism. She was smooth, wrestled hard, had a cool finisher, but I just never had a sense of who she was supposed to be. I know exactly who 2023 Athena is. The character jumps off the screen with the sort of magnetic unpredictability and sheer verve for life and thirst for chaos of a Terry Funk or Negro Casas. She mentions porcelain hussies, but it's almost as if some ancient statue developed a hairline crack in transit and a primal force of nature was released upon the world. One of the most frustrating parts of trying to rate or list wrestlers is that so much is based on opportunity. On some level, talent should drive opportunity. On another, it's all driven by a fickle power imbalance. The character of Athena was forged by the pressure of that talent constrained and confined, potential energy massing, volcanic forces building, until she was unleashed unto an environment where talent was simply undeniable, modern ROH.

2023 Ring of Honor is wrestling for the sake of wrestling put together by people who love wrestling for people who love wrestling. You don't end up watching Ring of Honor by accident. You're not a casual fan if you watch Ring of Honor. Unconstrained by the pressures of quarterly ratings, ad breaks, and demographic trends, it has steady storytelling and gets to showcase a variety of different styles. On any given show you're likely to see a crazy four way spotfest, three women's matches, a couple of squashes, a pure rules match, and a bunch of enjoyable backstage interviews. It took a bit for things to come back into focus once the show left the studio, but the last month or two has been pretty solid. Yes, being taped after Collision means that it's a smaller crowd, but it's a crowd that packs down towards ringside and that really wants to be there. 

And it's the home to the best story in the company, Athena's mentoring of Billie Starkz. Billie, having just turned 19, has found herself under Athena's wing. She forced herself there through persistence and pluck, through being sharp and intelligent but holding none of the wisdom of age or experience (though she has more matches under her belt than quite a few members of the roster, even if I kind of wish she'd scale back on that early match German suplex she does, sorry). She's gifted and ambitious and carries with her a positivity that lets her see the best in every opportunity. She has a courage that is blind but in showing no fear, has yet to incur the wrath of Athena; by nature, a predator strikes out first against those that fear it.

I'll admit that I worried that the pairing might soften the dangerous unpredictability inherent in Athena's character. The skits are legitimately funny (and as an aside, Lexie is exceptional in them, showing more depth every week not just in those but also in of her backstage interviews). But then Terry Funk was funny. Roddy Piper was funny. They could balance it because you never knew when things would turn. You never knew when something benign might be seen as a slight. You never knew with jovial acceptance might turn into homicidal rage. Every time Billie saves an opponent from a post match belt-planting, every time she refuses to cheat, it becomes a game of Russian Roulette played by a woman young enough to think erroneously that she'll live forever. 

Meanwhile, in search of acceptance, Billie continues to edge more and more over lines that she wouldn't have imagined crossing just a few months before. And it makes sense. She's gifted. She achieved great success early on. She's the valedictorian thrust into a world of adults, the kid who stumbles into a grad school class proclaiming that she got a 5 on the AP Exam. And why wouldn't she want to learn from the pinnacle, from the one of the most dominant ROH champions ever? So she learns lessons that change her just a little, one after the next. She becomes better and stronger, enduring gaslighting and bullying, not seeing that success will make her not just an eventual threat to Athena, but maybe even a monster herself. We're all just watching and waiting, teased and tempted by the hope that everything might turn out okay but secretly yearning for the railroad crash ahead down the tunnel. We're wrestling fans. It's what we do.

And then there's Mercedes Martinez, finally winning a belt that didn't even exist when she was making her mark. I saw Mercedes wrestle Sumie Sakai back in NECW in 2002. That's a foundational indy wrestling memory for me. In some ways, she's the perfect opponent for Athena; absolute confidence in the ring, the same sort of reactive presence in the moment, a shared history between them, every bit of offense looking credible and nasty. The run that Athena's on now? That should have been Mercedes' run, except for the opportunity that exists now didn't exist then. Their first ROH match was Athena's coronation, Mercedes a victim of the Texas location as much as anything else. For this one she had the homestate advantage, down to her sister being in the crowd. She had the momentum, Billie having eaten a fall in a tag match to create the first blemish on Athena's ROH record to set this up. 

The match itself went around fifteen, hard-hitting with an epic feel despite not wearing out its welcome. You can have a back and forth title match but it needs a few things to ensure coherence: competiveness, sharp and meaningful transitions, selling that creates consequence. I'll talk about the first two within the confines of the match but let me spend a moment with the last one; it's important because it's easier to build a narrative around a long stretch of control, or using shine/heat/comeback as a structure, and a match like this doesn't lean on those. When the match goes back and forth, it becomes all the more important to show that each move, even if chunked into smaller bits or decentralized throughout the match, still somehow matters. Selling allows that to happen. 

This nailed all three. The transitions were great. Athena turned the handshake into an opportunity for the magic forearm. Mercedes took over on the outside when Athena ripped up her sister's sign. Athena came back by landing on her feet out of a spider German. Mercedes used Diamante as a distraction multiple times, both to set up transitions and to protect big bombs that were going to be used as false finishes down the stretch. Athena came back by turning the chair-assisted double stomp attempt on the floor into a gnarly superplex off the guardrail. And then they sold, milking the 20 count on the outside. When they came back in throwing fists and forearms and kicks, there was a deliberate staggering after each one. This exchange wasn't just to show fighting spirit but to create a sense of violence manifesting the idea that they were trying to hurt one another and get an advantage. They weren't trying to prove their toughness; they were trying to prove that their forearm could go through the other wrestler's face. 

All of that built to a finishing stretch which took full advantage of the large arsenal of each wrestler. Even though finishers were kicked out of either due to resolve or distraction (or when it came to blocking the Brass City Sleeper, sharp teeth), there was always a bit of escalation they were leaving in their deep, deep pockets that avoided the need for repetition. The finish itself weaved everything back to the overarching story. Billie redeemed herself and got recognition and praise (even if not the specific love she sought). In doing so she crossed yet another line, the sharpest and reddest one yet. What she wants may be what she needs to be great (as opposed to losing matches on Rampage as Athena noted), but in obtaining it, will Billie Starkz realize that she's not Space Jesus but instead Icarus, flying far too close to the burning sun that is the Fallen Goddess? ROH TV allows for a steady deliberate pace. Given how well the slow drip of development is going and that they're just starting to milk this other side of Athena's compelling tweener persona (a heel so committed to the act and so undeniable that the crowd gets behind her even though she hasn't changed a single thing about herself), there's still so much meat on the bone. Supercard of Honor feels like a better destination than Final Battle so long as they can find a compelling enough match for Athena next month. Given the dubious way she lost, I wouldn't mind them going back to Mercedes, just with a literal chain instead of a figurative one between them.

I wrote about this a bit when talking about MJF and the Righteous but I feel like we got the balance all wrong as a community over the decades. Workrate became our false idol and we lost sight of the point. Character and narrative are the starting points; they're the "need to have"s. Workrate, athleticism, those are the nice to haves. Once you have the foundation, you can build upon it. The very best wrestlers, the greatest wrestlers, the top of the top, are the ones who tap into both sides of the balance, that grip hearts and minds with how deeply they submerge themselves into their personas and the stories that they're telling, and then can execute those stories with precision and intensity enough to create the most thrilling suspension of disbelief imaginable. If you have just one side of it, you have something seamless but potentially lifeless. With just the other, you're left with excitement that's hollow and quickly forgotten. With Athena, you get that perfect blend of alchemy, the component elements coming together to create something more than the sum of their parts, that ideal mix that makes professional wrestling unique and compelling. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/8 - 5/14 (Part 2)

Ring of Honor TV 5/11

Athena vs Skye Blue

MD: There's just so much to like about Athena matches right now. She's always on. Always. There was a spot in here where she cartwheeled out of Skye's moves, because she can, because she has that extra bit of athleticism she always had, and it set up Skye doing the same a moment later, the old tit-for-tat heel getting oneupped sort of moment you get at the start of a match like this. Then Athena floored her with a big boot for her indignity. Any of the elements at play that I just mentioned, the athleticism, the standby oneupmanship, the furious cutoff, is absolutely worth noting, but the best, most potent part? In the midst of the cartwheel, Athena was already laughing with malicious delight. She has the ability to come out of complex movements already emoting. We take certain things for granted sometimes, but I can't tell you how rare that is. She never takes a breath and focuses on hitting her spot. She's always living in the moment. There's nothing I personally want more in a wrestler than that level of commitment and immersion. 

To point, about half of her spots don't even feel like spots. They feel like organic violence, linked together by those in-between moments that aren't simply moving from spot to spot but instead swimming through a sea of malice and rage and fury and fear and despair and desperation every other emotion imaginable. You'll note that I said half and I said it like it was some sort of giant accomplishment. In 2023 when almost everything in the match is a spot and not just systemic flowing violence marked with a few called high spots, it is exactly that. Almost no one else on the roster is able to manage it. That's ok for the most part. It's just how wrestling is now. It's the house style, but in this facet, she's able to make it work at a different level more often than almost anyone.

And then there's the layout. We're maybe seven, eight months into this character. She has a 23-0 record in ROH. She's had a string of Proving Ground and title matches. She's had matches now without TV time constraint. She's able to play with callbacks (the stairs), unique traits (controlling the outside and the apron), multiple finishers and now multiple submissions. Certainly she has the forearm of doom that she likes to hit at the start of the matches and plenty of variation on how she does it. Here she was also stealing Skye's finisher (better than Skye can hit it) and Skye snuck in the O-Face (not better than Athena could hit it). Skye brought plenty of intensity and some nasty bumps to the floor. They don't have to cut the camera on each forearm which is well appreciated. And she's able to channel a plucky throwback babyface with her flying body press and even the shock of the all heart one-count kick out and desperate crawl towards the ropes at the end. This was so strong down the stretch that people seemed to even believe Athena when she was raising Skye's hand post-match and there was absolutely no reason in the world to believe. But that's just the hot streak Athena's on now.

AEW Dynamite 5/10

Orange Cassidy vs Daniel Garcia

MD: Cassidy, is, of course, someone else who can work variations. Other than Athena's forearm, the mind games with the hands in the pockets is the other best entry point in wrestling. He also has one of the best ongoing stories in wrestling, the simple, logical, reasonable notion that he's a fighting champion without much care. He'll defend the belt against anyone at any time, on an amazing streak, and it's starting to weigh heavily on him; it's the price of apathy. He may not care but his body certainly does. This match wasn't at all an end to itself but a means to further that along. It built from the 8 man last week; it set up the exhausted promo and the ambush by Fletcher later in the night. It made Garcia look like a beast but also one lost in his own world, completely full of himself and adrift in his sports entertainer persona, and still pretty damn effective past that. Watching, you saw him weighing himself down with it and couldn't help but wonder what he might be without it. Garcia targeted the hurt hand, the hurt knee, the hurting back. Sometimes cutoffs or transitions would be indirect, Cassidy being a half step slow because of the hand and walking into something two moves later because he'd ended up just a little behind. Sometimes it'd be overt, the two of them jostling on the top rope and Garcia striking Cassidy's hand to block a punch. The moves that always seem so smooth out of Cassidy felt labored here, as if he was barely getting over for them by the end. For the second week in a row the Stundog came at an askew angle. He couldn't hook the head on the Beach Break.

I found myself kind of dreading sitting through it though, which took me a minute to parse. This is the stuff I love in wrestling, wrestling-driven storytelling, deep application of creative consequence, the weight of what came before hanging over every moment, allowing the wrestlers to craft possibilities and inversions. This is the good stuff and it doesn't seem overwritten or overwrought. So why wasn't I into it as much here? Why was I dreading it? I'm not sure if this is shameful or admirable, but it comes down to this: there's only one endgame for the scenario. Cassidy loses the belt. His body gives out. His spirit can't sustain. A monster approaches to take advantage. There's no other logical end point. And I, more than a tad too old and too experienced to be so emotionally invested in something like this, don't want to see Cassidy lose and the run end. It's as simple as that.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 4/17 - 4/23

Ring of Honor 4/20

Lee Moriarty vs Konosuke Takeshita

MD: I'm a low vote on Takeshita. That's probably not entirely fair. I'm a relative low vote, which I suppose is what being a low vote means in the first place. Eric manages to be aloof and carries more of a purity in his reviews than I do. I'm as low on Brody because of what he does in the ring (bumping without selling, crummy looking offense, dragging down AJPW tag matches that look fun on paper with his antics), but it feels like a personal crusade because of the pillar he's put on by people who don't revisit his matches. If Takeshita wasn't an absolute darling of the community, voted most Underrated, and looked at as unquestionably (or at least unquestioned) great, he probably wouldn't bug me quite so much.

But he is, but he does. I'm happy to admit it. Just like I'm happy to admit the positives. He has size, to the point where he stands out against the AEW roster. His stuff generally looks good. He stays in the moment and throws himself into his matches and connects with the crowd. The whole "wrote a thesis on the German Suplex" concept is very good when used smartly. There's a lot of upside. In fact, even down to his emoting, he reminds me a lot of Adam Page, not in who he is, but in both a lot of the upside and why he doesn't work for me in many matches. With him, it's just too much, too soon. When he's in a position to work from underneath and have to fight to earn things, the build and the payoff is there. When he's against an opponent whose idea of wrestling gels more with his own, it's a lot of noise and not a lot of resonance. Pop ups and strike exchanges and Germans flying freely. It's kinetic and exciting and I probably would have loved it twenty years ago, but there's no meat on the bone and no substance to the action; engaging in the moment but forgotten with the next spot. So he has great raw talent but instincts that bug me and probably, like Page, a real pride that what he's doing is the right thing. It gets a reaction, doesn't it?

Thankfully, Lee Moriarty is having a pretty solid year so far and he has enough skill, stuff, and focus to keep Takeshita engaged and interested but sticking to a plot. It was a pretty good one too. The AEW house style is one of tease and tease and payoff. Sometimes the payoffs come too early. Sometimes that still works due to the idea of a reversal later on. An early payoff should be momentous and impactful, should change the course of the match. Too often, Takeshita hits something bit early and it doesn't matter nearly as much as it should. Here, he went for the Blue Thunder Bomb twice and Moriarty was ready for it, driving the arm down and opening up the match. Takeshita has a tendency to drop limb selling for bursts of offense, and while he, as the protege of Akiyama can get away with that, it's not often something I personally want to see. Selling isn't something to be done dogmatically for no reason; it's the definition of "reason" within a match. It's the primary way to express consequence to action. Actions are fine. People like actions. Reactions are what gives the story weight. There's a narrative gain to shrugging off selling in order to hit a burst of offense but there's a cost as well, not just to the match and everything that had happened in it, but to every match as it conditions fans that moves are actually not impactful. For guys with a lot of big offense, it's shooting themselves in the foot in the long term. 

Point being, that didn't happen here. Takeshita used the need for a crutch (or at least a splint) as a crutch and it helped explain Moriarty's cutoffs and why he might be able to hit a move but not capitalize. Everything was harder for him. Everything was more interesting as he tried to overcome. He was protected despite having the size advantage and letting Moriarty take so much of the match. Lee looked like a precision killer. The counters and reversals were compelling. Because he was starting from a detrimental point, Takeshita's kickouts and escapes and reversals actually seemed gutsy and resilient as opposed to just it being his turn to get stuff in. You really got the sense it could go either way or that Moriarty had a clear advantage until Takeshita jammed one reversal too many from Lee and dropped him on his skull. Even after that, there was a question of how Takeshita was going to put him away with one arm and without the bridging German (The answer was a knee to the face). Good showing. I don't need every Takeshita match to be limb-based, but because he was willing to commit fully here, it gave him an easy focus to lean into. I don't care what that focus is in most of his matches, so long as it's there and consistent and grounded. Here it was and it made for probably my favorite Takeshita match ever.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 3/13 - 3/19

ROH 3/16

Athena vs. Hyan

MD: There's a Kingston vs JVSK here, but the match was short, sweet, and exactly what it ought to have been to keep the build going for Kingston vs Claudio, so I don't have enough to say about it and no one needs me to write three paragraphs on Wooster and Jeeves and how VSK should be reading Wodehouse to figure out how to work more comedy of manners madcap antics into his matches. The big logical choice for the week is Jarrett vs Cassidy, but it's sort of self-evident and writes itself (Jarrett's mind games! Cassidy's punches! Crowd brawling through the commercial break! Do a blindfold tuexedo match next, Tony!). Therefore....

Let's talk more about Athena. She starts this with a bowing, over the top handshake, drawing a smile from Hyan, and then proceeds to hit the magic forearm and drop her. That forearm as an entry point is such an important part of Athena's matches. It sets the tone immediately and you go looking for it, but also there's the awareness that her opponent's looking for it too. While this wasn't a squash, it really shows why squashes are potentially important to a broader pro wrestling ecosystem (or dare I say "universe"). There are so many things that happen now in matches that are so distanced from their initial purpose. We had decades of dropdowns happening with no one ever getting tripped by them. I'm sure, as a kid, I had no idea what the purpose of a dropdown even was. It just felt like something done to get out of the way of a running opponent. There are a bunch of spots that are just apart of the lexicon of pro wrestling without unpacking the reason behind them (look at the old Waltman classic that starts in rocker dropper position and ends up with a flip). Point being, sometimes you actually need to hit the move instead of just having it countered in every match. Sometimes you want a mid-match move to look impactful enough that it ends a match. And in this case, you need Athena to hit that initial forearm half the time because then it actually means something when someone does duck it or reverse it or she has to work to sneak it in. You need to establish a baseline so that you can subvert expectations. In 2023, maybe that's a cooperative scenario where the crowd is just going to play along whereas in 1983, you were actually conditioning them, but maybe things have also been a certain way for so many years that laying these tracks might actually really, truly matter. Still, it's a hell of a forearm, right?

Hyan certain felt so as she spent the rest of the match selling it, disengaging after (shaky at best) kicks or pinfall attempts to rub at her chin. Athena, through coincidence or intent, stayed on it with a wrenching grapevine cravat and the crossface that she ultimately won with, so maybe it was all by design. Hyan had a couple of bursts of offense, but nothing seemed to be hitting hard. Moreover, Athena's worked in an incredible cutoff over the last few weeks, a Big Boss Man style choke drop off the ropes, just a perfect addition to her violent attitude, something that feels like a transgression and abuse that she can hit so suddenly in the midst of her opponent's offensive flurry. ROH has been a great show so far, two hours without any constraints (commercial breaks, quarter hour ratings to plan for, demos to aim at), a studio wrestling show, building to a PPV, but also very much great wrestling for the sake of great wrestling, and hey, if that means we get a couple more Athena matches a month, without limits and without restraint, I'm all for it. 

AEW House Rules 3/18

Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs. Butcher/Blade

MD: Look, I thought about not covering this because we're not supposed to see it and all, but we spend half of our time watching things we're not supposed to see between handheld footage and the entire 30 year output of pro wrestling in France. He may not like it, may not prefer it, but if anyone's going to understand it, it's a former tape trader. So there was a houseshow and someone went and fancammed it for us and you can probably find it on your own. And we thank that kind soul for his efforts. 

AEW is all about unique and interesting match ups. It's about things that a crowd knows they're going to see and no one else will get to see. You skip out on a house show and you never know what you're going to miss. That's the idea. Here, it's Cassidy and Darby teaming. They've been in some multi man matches before but had never teamed. Honestly, part of me just wants them to run with the idea you'll be seeing unique interactions and run house shows with the Deadly Draw/Lethal Lottery gimmick. This served more of a purpose though. Britt got to try out being a babyface in a low pressure environment. Anna got another match under her belt. Pillman, Jr. got to sit under Jarrett's learning tree. Hook was able to work from underneath against Ethan Page without worrying about keeping him perfectly protected. They dusted Pat Buck off for a unique crowd moment. 

And yeah, Cassidy and Darby got to team. It definitely hit the marks you'd want. Blade's an ideal Cassidy opponent since he's going to seethe at the antics. That's your shine, building to Darby doing running coffin splashes in the corner while Cassidy pinwheeled and got closer and closer. Darby just accepted it and leaned into it. Why not? And just as ideal was Butcher and Darby working together, where Butch was able to catch him off a spring back leap and takeover with massive power moves while Darby writhed and sold. The craziest bit here was when he just maneuvered him all over the place with a Texas Cloverleaf; unreal visuals. They made Darby work and work for the hot tag and then Cassidy brought it back down to tepid and they had a pretty active finishing stretch leading to a mousetrap finish. Post match, Butcher and Blade took some more licks and Darby celebrated with a kid which again, is one of those great moments people in that crowd would remember later and that kid will remember forever. There was a moment during the face-in-peril where Cassidy drew the ref away and was maybe just a little too animated for who he was (it let Blade use a chair), but otherwise, this was a pretty ideal house show tag.

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose

15. Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose ROH 3/12

ER: It's hard to beat a good 6 man tag. You can get guys with loose allegiances, different styles, and different skillsets, but as long as things keep a certain pace you can hide a lot of weaknesses and have an insane amount of fun. Whether you credit the format or the wrestler, this is the best I've seen Moose look, the best I've seen Cheeseburger used, and the most fired up I've seen Jay Briscoe in over a year. Cheeseburger got to hit some shoteis, some splashes that were never seen as threatening, he got to do some Mikey Whipwreck avoidance spots where the larger guys would just hurt themselves (including a nice run where Moose flies into the ringpost and Hanson bronco busts the turnbuckles), and most importantly he gets used as a weapon. We get several great spots with him getting thrown into other guys, the craziest being him getting caught on a dive and then thrown back into the ring by War Machine, only to get caught by Jay which leads directly to Mark hitting a wild tope and then Jay taking out War Machine with an even meaner, faster, low tope. Jay was awesome in this, and his brawling segments with Rowe and Moose were the highlights. Rowe is clearly the worker in War Machine even though Hanson is featured more, and he and Jay kick the shit out of each other. Later on when Moose and Jay are taking turns kicking each other it's like Moose finally turned the corner into becoming a good worker. I mean it helps when Mark Brisoce flies insanely into your spinning lariat, but still Moose looked good. Cheeseburger gets a nice triple shotei spot, only to see everybody recover and all kick him at the same time from different angles. He gets tossed around a lot here, as he should be, but usually the tosses aren't so mean. Moose planting him with a low angle german after catching the alley oop from Hanson is worth the price of admission. 6 man tags are just the perfect structure for 6 guys of varying ability to go in and have a great 15 minutes of action, and this all held to that philosophy.

PAS: This was a nice example of the strength of a six man tag, because outside of the Briscoes I am not sure if any of these guys are good wrestlers and I really enjoyed this. I had never seen Cheeseburger before, and he is Haiti Kid level skinny, he might weight less then 100 pounds and has no muscle development at all, I mean most tiny indy guys at least have some bulk to them. He does take a brutal beating and I liked how he avoided guys and made them hurt themselves, I am not sure I ever buy any offensive move as anything but a comedy spot though. War Machine look awesome, but there stuff should really be more violent, I want Ray Rowe to kill folks, and he just never does it for me. This did make me remember how much I love the Briscoes and I should make a wrestling resolution to watch more of them.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 11/25/15 Review

1. Moose vs. A guy with the last name Carter

Silly flipping spear, match over. "What a way to kick off this hour of ROH television." Okay, Kevin Kelly. Elgin comes out after prompted by Stokely Hathaway. and gets in Moose's face. Moose says "we can do this right now". Never before has anybody who said that, actually done something right now. Truth Martini says a bunch of stuff I don't listen to. Any Truth Martini is too much, but it sets up this match...

2. Moose & Michael Elgin vs. Donovan Dijak & J. Diesel

And it's not bad! It's brisk, almost worked tornado style. Everybody except Moose looked good. Moose had these terrible standing headbutts to Diesel's shoulder, and Diesel looked like he had no idea what he was supposed to be selling. Elgin hit a fun somersault senton off the apron, Diesel took an absolutely disgusting spinning back chop to the face from Elgin (that one got a couple rewinds), Dijak takes a crazy Psicosis ropes bump off a lariat, Taeler Hendrix looked like a weird plastic monster, Dijak's 360 pump kick is goofy but resulted in Moose getting kicked in the neck (even though Moose doesn't get that whole selling thing at all). So yeah, this was good. Moose is not good.

3. Roderick Strong vs. Jay Lethal

Damn this was goooood. I strongly dislike most of this Jay Lethal touring heel champ run, as he has terrible offense for a main event heel, the worst finisher in wrestling, and just doesn't have the persona for the style he's trying to work. Strong I like, but wasn't expecting anything when I dislike 50% of the guys in a match. But the match kicked ass. It's probably, easily, the best match from the whole run of shows shown on Destination America. Strong beat Lethal's ass the whole match, tossing out big elbows and nasty chops, really working him over all around the ring.  There was a minor blown spot that I think helped things, where Strong tried to pick Lethal up to drop him with a backbreaker he dropped him. BUT then he muscled him up hardway to redo the spot and planted Lethal over his knee. I'm not usually the biggest fan of immediately redoing spots, but it just made Strong look determined. Least favorite part of the match was Lethal hitting the Lethal Injection only to have Strong kickout. The kickout itself was really well done, nicely placed, made sense in the match, but Lethal made this impossibly goofy face afterwards to express "shock" and the camera just lingered on this awful face. He had half his lip tucked into his mouth and was doing these exaggerated stage breaths, like the community theatre cast of Godspell coming out for a minorly deserved curtain call. His horrible facial expression, with that weird tucked lip and heaving breath, looked like he was doing an impression of Oklahoma doing his impression of JR. I'm not sure what face he thought he was making, but it couldn't have possibly been that face. Lethal did keep going for his bad offense, his wimpy dives, his horrible finisher, but Strong just kept beating ass. His knees are a thing of beauty. He's got the timing down pat, and I've seen few better jumping knees. The finish run was great with Strong throwing every single thing at Lethal, one right after the other, and you knew it was building to something big, like when they shoot up tons of fireworks right at the end of 4th of July, all at once, with Lee Greenwood playing somewhere. Strong hits some big ass knees, a big gutbuster, his running kick, backbreaker, really just stacking up all his offense for one big blowoff. By the time he locked on the Stronghold Lethal tapped almost to just make it stop, which was the proper finish. Really really good match, not just because it exceeded expectations, but because it was legitimately good. And also, because that means less Lethal in big title matches, some distance for Strong and Lethal, and puts everybody in a better place.

If this was the last episode on DA (and I think it was) they at least went out on a nice high note.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 11/18/15 Review

1. Silas Young & Beer City Bruiser vs. War Machine

So now instead of overtly passionate men now we just get jokey segments with Young teaching the Boys about being men. It's all still clearly gay, I mean it is at a highway rest stop, but now it's getting too winky and hokey. This basically felt like Slick teaching Kamala how to bowl. But the match was real good so *shrug*. We get a lot of meaty bodies crashing into each other and War Machine actually felt like hosses instead of the usual hoss cosplay (hossplay?) that especially Hanson comes off as. I loved the early shoulderblock exchanges with Hanson eventually sending Bruiser flying, we got avalanches, cannonballs, big splashes, the kind of stuff you'd want. Rowe kinda whiffs on a superman punch but makes up for it later in the match. I dug Beer City Bruiser here, he really dumped himself on suplexes a couple times, hit a big frog splash, a wild cannonball off the apron into The Boys, and yeh this was good.

Steve Corino gets in the ring with Nigel wanting to reinstate him, but Corino talks about how 79 tours of Japan (but who's counting!) have left his body broken, and he needs serious neck surgery so will not be able to wrestle. He really should have thought about that before working so many non-ROH indies this year.

2. Michael Elgin vs. Kevin Lee Davidson

Booooooooo. Davidson is a big lumpy fat guy who I immediately get excited to see, and the match ends after one okayish clothesline. Elgin as HHH is tired.

3. The Addiction vs. The Kingdom

This match can kind of be summed up by one Daniels missed corner charge. Daniels threw Taven into the buckles, watched as Taven stopped himself by kicking his legs up and back. We see Daniels watching Taven, waiting for the right moment to run underneath him while not getting kicked in the face, because that's how the spot goes. So Daniels watches Taven kick up and over, runs towards the buckles and ducks WAY low to avoid Taven kicking him in the face, and then, when arriving into the turnbuckles, he stops and confusedly looks around, flabbergasted how he ended up chest first in the buckles instead of bumping dicks with Matt Taven, or whatever move he was pretending to do while just running towards the turnbuckles. Dur durdur where did he go General Daniels?? You threw him into the buckles, but when you arrived in the buckles seconds later, he was gone! Look around some more, did he sneak past the ring pole? You watched him not hit the buckles, you ducked really low to run underneath his body, but then his body was not in front of you! That body that you just ran underneath!

We got all four guys realllllly showing off their comedy chops in this one. It was terrible. Tons of yuks. Daniels looked so bad. The guy telegraphs everything to an insane degree. We got a dive train spot where nobody knew how to catch anybody else. Ref bump. Comedy spots. Contrived double teams. A real triple threat!

And to think, I won't even get the privilege of watching this on television in a couple weeks.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 11/11/15 Review

1. Cedric Alexander vs. ACH

Kevin Kelly puts over the unique concept of the wrestlers in Ring of Honor shaking hands before and after matches. God is that something they're still trying to promote? This match didn't do a whole lot for me, honor or no. It felt like a back handspring contest. I'm not sure who won, but there were a lot of handsprings. Also a lot of hiptosses with guys landing on the apron on their feet, a lot of "well-scouted signature offense". It all kinda runs together when there's no breathing room in a match. Veda Scott was really good in this, using herself as a human shield to block ACH's punt, allowing Cedric to hit a nice STO on the apron. She also held her ground when Cedric almost flip dove into her, with him having to hold the ropes to avoid hitting her "by mistake". I woulda got out of dodge and she stuck right in for the spot. There were a couple things I liked, ACH hit his cool rope run flip dive, Cedric throws a real nice running dropkick, and Cedric's blown springboard leading to the finish was really cool. I don't know if it was supposed to be blown, but he blew it spectacularly, catching a foot on the top and then bouncing chest first on the other side. It reminded me of all the great planned Hamrick blown spots. But the bulk of the match wasn't even move exchanging, it was reversal exchanging. At times it felt so far up its own ass, like actual moves weren't even being done because they were just focusing on reversing reversals of other reversals.

2. Will Ferrara vs. Caprice Coleman

This is maybe the quietest I've ever heard a ROH crowd. My were they silent during this. Coleman was real slow on offense. His standing leg drop and sliding leg drop to a seated Ferrara looked nice, but the set-up for all his stuff was slow, sluggish. Ferrara is blandish but Coleman didn't give him much to work with. For his part Will took two real nice "shoulder to the post" bumps in the corner, one on a missed charge and the other with Coleman tossing him. He's also good at putting over submissions. Last week against Strong he made me believe Strong was stretching him, and this week he made something Coleman did look deadly, so clearly this is just a great skill of his. Ooooooooo and after the match Nana gives him an envelope! It could possibly be coupons and newspaper clippings, like Rachel's mom cuts out and sends to her.

3. All Night Express vs. Briscoes

Hey, this was an All Night Express match that I liked! That isn't a thing that happens. But it happened right here! And it wasn't even all because I love the Briscoes, ANX also did some things I enjoyed! Titus hair flips a bunch but this might have been the best I've seen him. His share of the double team offense looked good, took Briscoes' stuff violently, flipped his hair some more, did some Martin Starr cosplay, hit a nice standing splash, more hair flips. I dug Mark starting things with some grappling. I want to see a character shift where he masters his redneck kung fu so moves on to a new challenge, and becomes a redneck RINGS worker. Mark's dives get crazier every week, dude really plays lunatic better than anybody else right now. I really liked the structure of this as ANX control Mark for awhile, Jay tags in and he and Mark go on a tear, King gets a run of kicks and suplexes, finishers get blocked, and then Jay hits a wicked Jay Driller and Mark hits a lung collapsing Froggy Bow. It's an easy way to fill 12 and both teams have the formula down. King took a weird bump off the apron and did a strange phantom knee injury for like 3 seconds. But yeah this was good. More stuff like this.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 11/4/15 Review

I skipped a couple weeks as the product wasn't doing much for me and I found my brain wandering something fierce during the last couple episodes. One episode I even nodded off during! When I nod off and wake up in the middle of a Michael Elgin match my reaction will likely never be "I better rewind this Michael Elgin match". So really the only thing I remember about the last couple weeks of TV is Rachel saying that Veda Scott always appears to look uncomfortable wearing her short dresses. Like she doesn't quite know how to best move in a small dress. She also thought Maria - in her tight dress and strappy heels - looked like Jersey trash's idea of dressing up. I told her I didn't think Maria was from New Jersey and Rachel assumed she might just be cosplaying as Jersey nightlife. This seems accurate.

I had no idea O'Reilly was Canadian until he dropped several "SO-rees" in his opening interview. "Adam Cole, you're gonna be real SO-ree."

1. Silas Young & The Beer City Bruiser vs. The Young Bucks

So Silas Young made The Boys look and dress more like what HE feels men should look like, so now they look like damp Seattle street rent boys. I appreciate that Silas is at least trying to capture a specific region with his desires, molding them into the type of boys he'd like to pick up. "Yeah, put on these scoop neck ribbed tanks, lemme wet you down a bit....tear those jeans around the thighs.....yeah, now you look like men." This part of the match was fun. Bucks looked good, Young and Bruiser were fine. This whole things was mostly a Bucks double team show, with, yes, a lot of superkicks. Their superkick is a real nice cutoff spot, which is mostly what they use it as. Young has a bunch of silly offense that doesn't fit his supposed character, but you knew that. He did plant a Buck with a nice Finlay roll, but then went into some dorky headstand on the buckles that thankfully saw him get superkicked. Matt throws a nice back elbow, Bruiser takes a nice back bump to the floor, and yeah this was good enough. And it leads tooooooo

2. Young Bucks vs. The Boys

Young and Bruiser bailed and made The Boys finish the match, and Boys are working a kind of enhanced Mikey Whipwreck of guys who don't actually have offense (even though they can't help themselves and still do some indyish offense). The match is basically them being whipping boys for more Bucks flying. One of the Boys gets a silly double rana, meaning he did a rana simultaneously on both Bucks, but that was it, Bucks took over and hit More Bang for Your Buck on both men stacked on top of each other. The fact Dalton Castle has not ONCE come out on TV fighting for his boys, or even confronting Young, is ridiculous. Really feels like a WWE move where Castle got over too much so they had to knock him down a few pegs. Out of all the things they could have done with the Boys angle, this is just about the blandest. It's still dripping with Silas Young's blatant and out-without-ever-officially-coming-out homosexuality, but it's missing the passion. And you need the passion.

3. Will Ferrara vs. Roderick Strong

Extended Strong squash and he looked good. Ferrara was either really good at putting over submissions, or just actually hurt while in Strong's submissions. Strong had nasty chops, a couple great leaping knees, and worked some nice fast sequences with the smaller Ferrara, and also hit a mammoth dropkick and a big stomp to the face (one of which gave Ferrara a nice welt on his forehead). But this was all about the couple subs he locked on: His camel clutch into a cravate was super painful looking, with him locking his knuckles under Ferrara's jaw and really wrenching that jaw to the left. After he dropped the cravate he was holding just a basic chinlock but even that looked like his ulna was hooked right under Ferrara's throat. It did not look like a casual chinlock. Match ends with him locking on a standing Boston crab while standing on the side of Ferrara's face, with Ferrara screaming. I love when Strong works like a total badass like this.

4. Adam Cole vs. Kyle O'Reilly vs. AJ Styles

Well this was predictably messy and disjointed. Long periods of guys selling, because 3 way, match based on breaking up stuff rather than beating down stuff, silly 3 way submission spot, blecch. O'Reilly isn't very good and his armbar is done so much that it's impossible to take it too seriously. It's not approaching levels of the Angle Lock, but it's now a move he goes to several times in a match that rarely goes anywhere. Everything here felt really rushed, with the only actual inspired moments coming in the last couple minutes: Styles and O'Reilly had a cool little strike exchange with both guys tossing out elbows and kicks at weird angles, not just forearm tradeoffs. You had kicks to the spleen followed by slaps followed by elbows with neither man waiting for the other to time it just both guys winging them out there. The O'Reilly caught a Styles strike and dropped into a triangle. Styles tries to fight out and deadlifts O'Reilly, and then gets him into position for a Styles Clash while still stuck in the triangle. That's an awesome visual. Cole hits a superkick to the back of Styles head which sorta drops O'Reilly with the Styles Clash (and could have been a really dangerous fall for Styles since the triangle was still on), and then Cole hits the unnecessarily goofy brainbuster on his own knee for the win. Normal brainbusters look better. That own knee nonsense is just silly. So, that hot final 90 seconds or so was a hoot, but the rest was triple threat garbage.


Still overall this was a better episode than we've been getting, so maybe I'll get back on the bus. We did have a lot of Mark Briscoe commentary, and who could hate that?

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 10/14/15 Review

1. ACH vs. Matt Sydal

This was awesome. Great fun. It was super spotty, but when all your spots work and they all look awesome, then shiiiiiiiit I can get into that. ACH starts with some fun wrist work and it does effect the rest of the match as from here Sydal switches to knees and kicks, and all of his knees and kicks looked gooood. ACH is freakishly athletic and can land in all sorts of crazy ways, really leaning into Sydal's baseball slide and going sprawling into the barrier. Sydal is no stranger to big bumps himself and both guys really bust out all the spots they know, ACH nails some nasty elbows, lands the punt on the apron (as well as an awesome rope running punt later to boot Sydal off the top), and ACH's screaming fast Fosbury Flop dive is just gorgeous. Both guys fly into the others knees on missed flying moves, ACH dumps himself on a reverse rana, and this was just tons of fun. Not much story to speak of, but when both guys have cool offense you can work a good "one-upper" type of show me match. Awesome stuff.

The Addiction and All Night Express have a spirited mic showdown, but neither team says much of anything. They speak in catchphrases, they don't stumble over words, they speak loudly and pointedly annunciate specific words in sentences, but they don't say anything. "Belts are still ours!" "ANX does it all night long!" There's a recap. Watching it took much longer.

2. Beer City Bruiser/Silas Young vs. The Boys

So apparently Silas won The Boys. This already feels like a major disappointment. Dalton wasn't out here causing a ruckus? This angle got way less gay and way more uninteresting way too fast. This match was fun though. Beer City Bruiser is an egg-shaped old Harley trainee, hits a nice elbow and a powerful dropkick, dumps one of the Boys with a nasty suplex. Another boy takes a nasty lariat from Silas. Short little squash, but good. I wish the Bruiser was on TV more. But man this is just so predictable and frustrating. Silas vs. Dalton with Silas himself volunteering to take the Boys, the simmering homosexual lust, all of it wasted. Castle not even running out fighting for his Boys is just unexcusable. Also, instead of a Tale of the Tape at one point there should have been a graphic with Silas Young looking into an ornate mirror, with Dalton Castle being reflected back. It would have been perfect. Dalton Castle, the man Silas Young is refusing to accept as his real identity, just staring back at him. If it was reflected in a truck stop men's room mirror it would have been even better. I'm so bummed they messed this all up. They could have easily just ripped off the Beecher/Chris Keller storyline.

3. Watanabe vs. Jay Lethal

Well, this was better than I expected it would be. I was expecting it to be terrible, but, tiny victories. Jay Lethal is just bad. He has terrible flimsy blowjob offense, offense that would be terrible if he were a babyface, except he's this awful HHH "have my title match masterpiece" performer now and so he wedges all this lousy blowjob offense into these awful touring champ main events. He does the 3 topes (which has now become a totally played out move. It's the Roll the Dice of 2015 indies) and the Lethal Injection is hands down the worst finisher in wrestling. Watanabe was fine here, liked his big suplex comeback, liked his senton, liked how he sold his back going into the barrier off the topes. Hated Lethal. So tired of Lethal main event epics.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/23/15 Review

1. Silas Young vs. Michael Elgin

Elgin hasn't been on TV in awhile so he goes over pretty strong on Silas here, but Silas is more of a regular so might have been nice to give him more. Although when he did get more his stuff looked kind of weak, including an incredibly goofy slingshot double foot stomp...thing, that doesn't really look like it touches Elgin. But Young at least takes Elgin's stuff nicely, especially a massive powerbomb on the floor into the guardrail. Kevin Kelly was doing his horrible style of announcing, where he doesn't so much do play-by-play as he does just yell out random nouns that he sees. When Young went for a backbreaker on Elgin, Kelly just yelled "Surgically repaired KNEE of SILAS!" Not anything about the backbreaker, just decided to point out Young's knee, which had nothing to do with any part of the match. It's like he spends 80% of the match looking elsewhere, and then occasionally looks up and points out the first object he notices. Maybe it's some sort of creative writing thought exercise? Needed more underlying homosexual shame and rage, like the other Silas Young matches.

2. Caprice Coleman vs. ACH

Well this didn't do a whole lot for me. All thigh slaps all the time. Just a buncha slappy sounds with legs extended in kick like motions. Legs not touching opponent's bodies, but slappy sounds happening anyway. If a superkick missed in Philadelphia, would it still make a slapping sound? Always. Always.

3. RPG Vice & Kazuchika Okada vs. Hirooki Goto & Briscoe Bros.

This started out not very good, and by the end I was on board. Jay started with Okada and it's not shocking that Okada had bad looking strikes, but Jay looked like he was holding waaaaay back. No clue what was going on here because a few minutes later he's beating the hell out of Trent. Maybe Jay was just being a slow starter, because by the end he's tossing out headbutts and big lariats and looking like a monster. But if this match works, and eventually it does, it's because Mark was absolutely on fire throughout the entirety of this. I couldn't take my eyes off that crazy caveman. Yeah Trent can take a big bump and Goto threw a nice spinning heel kick in the corner, but this was the Mark Brisco show. All of Mark's palm strikes looked great, he flung himself into offense, all his combos looked cool while also looking like he was just making them up as he went. He looked awesome, one of my favorite Mark performances. And after Jay's stumble early with Okada, he went out on a wild note just killing Baretta. Briscoes make everything better.


This week's show went by quick, even if looking back I didn't love a lot about it. That's...good, right? All worth it for Mark Briscoe.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America Review 9/16/15

1. House of Truth (Dijak & Diesel) vs. reDRagon

Kevin Kelly puts over J. Diesel's "golden gloves background" as he's doing a dorky jerkoff screaming forearms in the middle of the ring exchange. He would be much more interesting if he actually attempted to use this background, instead of jacking off in tribute to Japan. It's like facing Mecca while you pray. You have to face east while doing jackoff forearm exchanges. Overall this was a pretty fun match. Fish - the guy I like the most out of these four - was kinda off the whole time, worked pretty sloppy. But Dijak? This was the best I've seen Dijak look. First part of the match was him tossing Fish and O'Reilly around, including dumping Fish with a cool back breaker into just hurling him over the top to the floor. All of the stuff Dijak was involved with was fun, loved him getting chopped down by reDRagon's leg kicks. Fish caps off his match long sloppy run by landing on Diesel's face while doing a samoan drop, busting his nose open. Still, fun overall match. Lethal was loud and grating on commentary. He just shouted so much.

We get an Epic Brisco Bros. promo to hype up their PPV match against mystery opponents. These guys are the best. "Let me take it for a bit Jay". Talking about how they can be scouted, but Briscos can't scout them because they don't know who they are, and how the Briscos gameplan is just going to be to punch them in the face. Their chemistry and interplay and style is perfect.

2. Cedric Alexander vs. Dalton Castle

Oh man, Silas Young on commentary is talking about how he's going to make Castle's boys into men. "Oh I got a lot of things to do to these boys, coming out here with their greased up bodies". THESE GUYS ARE GOING TO FUUUUUUUCK and it's going to be glorious. The fans want it soooo bad and they hate how good it makes them feel. "These boys need to be taught how to be men." Young is actually talking about teaching them how to properly urinate. Match is fast paced and fun but I was admittedly distracted by Young's wanton desire on commentary. Castle's delayed German always looks killer, also liked his spin around rana from the apron. Veda Scott knows how to work a crowd, and I really liked the timing on the one spot where Cedric hides behind her, and she ducks just in time for Cedric to punch Castle over her. I'm normally not a fan of "opponent distracted, gets rolled up" finishes, but Cedric did one of the best roll ups I've ever seen here and leveraged all of his weight on Castle. It really looked like a pin that would be impossible to kick out of, so it totally worked. Fun stuff.

3. The Kingdom vs. War Machine

Another fun match. Seems like if they keep these things under 10 minutes then nobody gets stretched out beyond their worth. Most in the fed can fill an 8 minute match without making too many logic gaps. I think the more time Hanson gets the more he does stupid cartwheels and the longer matches go the more likely Taven is to do really bad flying offense that misses by a mile. But this is to the point, plays to everybody's strengths, and totally works. Rowe is clearly the better member of War Machine and he does some cool stuff here. The best was his running double knees with Bennett bumping hard into the buckles. Taven doesn't mess himself here, Hanson actually works like a big hoss instead of a large fat Kofi Kingston. This is a War Machine I could get comfortable enjoying.

And then we get a Dalton Castle promo talking about celebrating his victory by having quiche and mimosas.


Overall this was probably my favorite episode of ROH TV since they've started on DA. The matches didn't expose anybody and in fact played up a lot of strengths, and adding a Briscos promo will liven up any situation. More of this stuff, ROH.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/2/15 Review

1. Adam Page vs. Jay Briscoe

A match born out of DISRESPECT! How many times have they gone to that "no handshake" well? But whatever this segment worked. Jay kicked the hell out of Page, stomped his neck and hit a killer tope. Page throws a chair at him then hits the Rite of Passage on a bunch of chairs. Mark comes out throwing chairs and Colby Corino just has zero body chemistry whatsoever. But for a match ending the way it did this was the perfect time and made me want to see more.

"When I beat you...I get those BOYS". Silas Young as closeted gay predator has made him seem so much more interesting. He and Castle can run the Chris Keller/Beecher Oz arc and I could see it being feud of the year. Silas Young becoming one of Castle's boys could be glorious, but only if it ends in him eventually giving in to his desires. The heat and homophobia from the audience during Young and Castle's first kiss would be off the charts, but there will be an extra layer of the audience hating themselves for how good it makes them feel.

2. Cedric Alexander vs. Caprice Coleman

Eh, this was okay. Alexander isn't that good, a whole bunch thigh slaps and some bumps that don't really look connected to the move he's taking. I like his apron kick, that always seems to look good. And I like Veda Scott's goofy scowl faces. Peak was really the postmatch, with Moose decking Cedric with a wrench-loaded punch. Alexander crushed the selling. He charged right at Moose who timed the punch perfect, and Cedric just crumbled immediately and ended up draped over the bottom rope. It was real satisfying, like catching Bald Bull during his Bull Charge.

3. Brutal Bob Evans vs. Cheeseburger

For two guys who really aren't good, I really enjoyed this. You have to throw out all execution expectations. Most of the things these two do don't look good. There's always a disconnect with their bumps, strikes look poor, most of Cheeseburger's stuff whiffs, no actual emotion in either of their faces...but if you just go in expecting things to look poor and just watch the layout, this totally worked. Again, I really enjoyed it. Cheeseburger hits a neat somersault senton on a chair, Bob punches him a bunch in a headlock and rips at his nose, and we all build to that table spot from TV almost 3 months ago. They take their time setting it up which could seem ridiculous in other matches but felt appropriate here, really adding to things as you knew Bob was taking the bump through that table. And certainly, Bob takes a clumsy mapped out bump that in no way looked like the way a person would fall after getting limply punched. But again it totally worked within the context of who these two are. Bob takes a planned careful back bump that still sees him smack the back of his head, and for something bad this was overall very satisfying.

4. Hanson vs. Jay Lethal

So I actually enjoy Jay Lethal as fighting champion, defending both belts and doing it with braggadocio. I just don't really like Jay Lethal singles matches. So that's somewhat problematic. Still, his presentation and the way he carries himself is important, and he's been doing it well, so that counts. Hanson should be better. He should not do fucking springboards or cartwheels. Those things rarely look good anyway, but when you can't actually do them well...get this...they look even worse. Hanson just can't abandon them. And here they noticeably took away from the match. Just do a normal lariat, you don't need to get attention by being a larger man who can do a so-so cartwheel. His moonsault to knees was better, but it fell flat coming off his horrible handspring to whatever. Lethal's run to the finish was good and things were mapped out well throughout, but eh, neither guy does much for me. So I'm left in this weird conflicted area where I like neither guy, but they laid out their match in a nice way, and mostly stuck to it...so we'll just say it was solidly not bad-ish.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 8/19 & 8/26/15 Review

1. Silas Young vs. Dalton Castle

Awesome little TV match, one of my very favorites since I started watching their weekly TV. Castle jumps him at the bell with headbutts and punches and it's clear right away these two just work real well together. Castle bumps big taking an awesome Jerry bump that didn't feel set up from a mile away, really felt integrated into the match nicely. He also bumps big into the railing and later takes a great tumble over the top, tackling Young. Young actually works more like an asshole here, as opposed to working like Chris Sabin...which I suppose is just working like a different kind of asshole. More backrakes, less flips. Both men move really well in there and everything was laid out great, nice build and logical progression. One of the eunuchs takes a big bump, and postmatch Young wants a stip added to a future match where HE gets possession of the eunuchs if he wins. I love it. Castle kept taunting him with flamboyance and it drives Young mad with seething passion. Him demanding the eunuchs is so obvious. He's accepting a dare that nobody at all was daring him to do. "Okay guys, FINE, I'll take the eunuchs." It's like Lindsey Graham saying he'd spend a night in a rest stop men's room if he wins any primaries. Nobody else is asking him to do it, clearly just a guy offering to do it. Silas Young's character makes so much more sense if you think of him as a closeted gay man.

2. Will Ferrara vs. Moose

They do the tale of the tape and Kevin Kelly actually says "No mention of heart, though". Ugh. This is the best I've seen Moose look, so this accomplished what it set out to do. He's still kinda sloppy and still seems lost, but the offense he chose to do worked, and he did neat things like take a spike tornado DDT on the floor. Plus the all white gear looked brilliant.

2. Young Bucks vs. RPG Vice

***NOTE: I'm not sure what happened to my write-up of this match. It got gone. It once was, but no longer is. Long story short, did not love it. Rocky Romero is horrible. Romero working schtick is unbearable. Bucks had a couple nice cut off moments, notably cutting off Trent during his apron ass hattery. Match went too long, Bucks weren't as violent and twerpish as they can be.

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1. Bloodbound Warriors (Grey Wolf & Red Scorpion) vs. Briscoes

Never seen Bloodbound Warriors before, but they appear to be shortish God of War or Warhammer cosplayers, and they've clearly committed to it and instead of making gay-intensive Vines they've focused it into pro wrestling. GREY Wolf is covered almost entirely in RED body paint, which is confusing. He's also not very good. Mainly he staggers around selling for Jay, so it's not like he got to do a whole lot, but his staggering wasn't very good. Scorpion has a big HGH belly and was much better. He had a couple nice press slams and I like a good press slam. Mark took a head first press slam over the top off the apron, takes a wild bump into the railing, and later got flipped over the buckles to the floor. Mark was a maniac in this. Jay hits a wild tope on Wolf, both guys kick the hell out of Scorpion (with Mark hitting a huge pump elbow off the top and Scorpion getting dumped on the back of his head with a clothesline). This was really fun. I'd actually like to see BW back, just because they seem a bit different from some of the ultra super serious workers we usually see.

2. Donovan Dijak vs. Roderick Strong

This worked! Checking my pre-match predictions, and yep, I was in the "this won't work" camp. But it worked. Dijak has a ways to go, his "reeling" especially looks horrible. And since this match had plenty of strike exchanges it also had plenty of him reeling and just...looking stupid while waiting to be hit. He can break out some impressive fast sequences (his 360 pump kick looked killer) but doesn't have any of the little things yet. He could get there. Roddy has had a great year and looked good here. He smartly built the match up to some good nearfalls that tricked me. Truth actually had some of the only good stuff I've seen from him. There was a really nicely timed spot where Roddy jumps over potential Truth interference while on the apron, and then Dijak belts him. The timing in this was spot-on throughout. Really solid stuff. Dijak just needs to figure out what the hell to do with his body and face while waiting to be hit.

3. Future Shock (Adam Cole & Kyle O'Reilly) vs. Addiction

Frankie Kazarian's vest is ridiculous. It's trying soooooooooo HARD you guys. It's like he went into Spencer's Gifts and bought every single patch they had, then ironed them onto his vest in a super organized fashion. They run the full gamut of "bands who are well known enough to sell patches at the mall", so he's got the Rolling Stones on his shoulder and The Beatles on his back and Led Zeppelin on his side. Hey, man. I'm a man. A man with a vest. I am definitely a man who has patches of bands that every human listens to. So many inches of vest are filled up with these personality-free patches, all of them placed on the vest as properly as possible. It is truly a vest that was workshopped by moms. It might as well be one of my mom's old appliqué holiday vests, like the Christmas one with felt gingerbread men and candy canes. It's that awful. Except my mom loved her holiday vests. She had all of autumn and winter covered: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. They spoke to her personality and she would still be wearing them today if that damn Stacy and Clinton didn't constantly put them down on What Not to Wear. They've ruined the vests for her. Frankie Kazarian's vest tells me nothing about him, except that he has zero personal taste of his own. His vest looks like it was decorated by a 45 year old man who is in charge of decorating teen bedrooms on sitcoms. "Looks like that back wall could use another rock & roll poster, Gary."

And the announcer calls The Addiction the "World Tag Team Champions of the World". Why is this a thing? I'm pretty sure Corino called them this a couple weeks ago. The Ring of Honor Pro Wrestling Champions of the World of Ring of Honor Pro Wrestling.

And this match bleeeeeewwwwwww. For a guy who is known for his cold, bland, robotic execution, Daniels sure does execute a lot of things horribly. He's like one of those replicants from the show Humans who is at the end of his shelf life, so the muscle memory is there, he's just really horrible at doing all of his programmed commands and sometimes ends up lost in the forest, his A.I. caught on a low hanging branch. Here we get really awful thigh slaps, overshot moonsaults, clunkily moving into position for offense, all really bad. He did a slow tortured walk to try and catch O'Reilly on the ropes that was the just the worst community theater Frankenstein's Monster walk you've seen. At one point Cole/O'Reilly do a shitty legsweep/clothesline combo on Daniels and no physical connection is made by anybody. So you have three bodies all moving to their own beat, with Cole whiffing a legsweep, O'Reilly whiffing a clothesline and Daniels back bumping to nothing. If one segment could tell the story of the match.

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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.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 8/5/15 Review

1. War Machine vs. Young Bucks

Still have not seen a War Machine match I like, seems like they're kinda fake burly asskickers, in the same way Silas Young is a fake asskicker. They look the part, but then I get all excited to see them leveling dudes and it just never really happens. All of their offense makes a lot of noise and crashing mat sounds, but it's just because their big bodies crash into the mat while the contact on the opponent is minimal. The more shocking development is that I definitely like the Young Bucks. They're more entertaining on shows where the crowd is not filled with fans who are "super smart" and cheering all their wink wink heel antics because they're "in on it". I would love to see them run their schtick in the deep south on some no name indy show. THOSE fans will be driven up the walls. Them working heel in Memphis as little John Tatums would be wonderful. We got an injury angle during the middle of this when Nick hit a flip dive and came up limping. So Matt is FIP for awhile (wait I thought they were the working heels in this one....) and eventually AJ Styles replaces him because I guess that's a thing? Rowe throws an okay overhand right but man I'm just wanting meaner offense from these two. Hanson will throw a nice elbow drop, but then more of that offense that sees 95% of his body crashing into the mat while a limb kinda grazes a Buck. Rowe even bodyslams Hanson onto Matt at one point, but pretty much just slams him past him so Hanson's shoulder grazes Matt. It looked like Rowe was just slamming Hanson and Matt happened to get in the way a little bit. Corino is really horrible throughout this. His enthusiasm comes off so phony. Bucks use the superkick in good spots here, especially early in the match where Nick nailed one on the apron before then kicking Hanson in the face. So yeah. Liked the Bucks here, War Machine are losing me, and the match was way too overbooked for what it was. And RDRR Nick's ankle injury was alllllll a ruse. So...the master plan was for Matt to take a 2-on-1 beating for several minutes? Wow, Kewl plan guyz.

2. Cedric Alexander vs. Romantic Touch

I had never seen Romantic Touch before, and once he threw a bad punch I put 2 and 2 together and immediately guessed it was Rhett Titus under a mask. I'm assuming that's common knowledge. Cedric has a bunch of intricate thigh slap offense. Titus shoves a fan and takes Cedric's stupid sitout-powerbomb-on-own-knees nicely. But I could not see Titus again and be happy. And Cedric is one of those dime a dozen chest out/butt out indy workers who all seem to have the exact same offense. I have a pain in my foot right now.

3. Adam Cole vs. Kyle O'Reilly

Rachel walked through the room and heard O'Reilly's name and thought it was a play on the band Rilo Kiley. I laughed. I mean, that doesn't make much sense to make a pun out of, but Rhett Titus as a masked guy still wrestling like Rhett Titus doesn't make much sense either so fuck it. Kylo Riley it is.  We get about 3 minutes of Riley holding a limp headlock while the fans jackoff to chants of "Headlock City" (Headlock City: You Might Not Even Notice You're Here!), then Christopher Daniels gets involved, throws a horrible double clothesline, Riley throws some of the worst brawling punches you've seen (unless he was aiming for a spot 6" behind Daniels' head, wherein his aim would be spot on). And this sets up a tag match.

4. The Addiction vs. Adam Cole & Kyle O'Reilly

Corino keeps calling the Addiction "The World Tag Team Champions of the World" and it doesn't sound like he's doing it to be funny...he just thinks that's what it's supposed to be. This was too short to be much of anything, and had an awkwardly placed commercial break to boot. Adam Cole's brainbuster to his knee is just impossibly stupid. In what world is that more dangerous than just giving a guy a normal brainbuster? This was 4 minutes of technically proficient, mechanically cold and overly rehearsed wrestling. And then Chris Sabin came back at the end which I can't even imagine hardcore ROH fans being very excited about.


Man I am losing some steam on this show. About a month before I started watching I heard from trusted people that this had really turned into a great weekly show, but I think I've enjoyed one? maybe two? episodes since they've been airing on DA. It's some combination of them featuring guys I don't care about, with underperformances from the guys I do like. We'll see, I suppose.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 7/29/15 Review

So last week was a real dud of an episode. Let's hope for a wee bit better show this week? I already had a laptop blow up, fiscal year end kicked my butt, and I need a good show here.

1. The Kingdom (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) vs. Corey Hollis & Jonathan Gresham

This was a decent enough extended squash, got over the Kingdom as it intended. Gresham took some nice bumps into the railing, and man is he tiny. I kind of hate how Hollis bumps. I had never seen him before. I'm okay with that. We go through a long awful stretch where Bennett is repeatedly duped by Gresham essentially running back and forth in the ring. Taven on one side, Bennett on the other, Gresham running between them and getting grabbed by Taven, then slipping out with Bennett chasing him back and forth. It looked terrible, just an awful run of cat and mouse. They did it so much it looked like the moment when you noticed HHH set up every single one of his moves with an Irish whip. But, that was just the middle. It was fine. Not fine to the literal dictionary definition; but fine, as it's most commonly used. Which is to say, it was okay.

Destination America regularly pushes a show called "Killing Bigfoot" which...I gotta say I do not understand. Destination America has (no less than) 9 shows dedicated to Bigfoot. A cursory check of some well known science journals confirms that as of this writing we have still discovered zero Bigfoots. But apparently there is an entire show dedicated to killing a Bigfoot. I am looking forward to watching other Destination America programs like "Sanding Down Unicorn Horns" or "Shitting Down the Long Neck of Loch Ness".

2. Caprice Coleman vs. Brutal Bob Evans vs. Silas Young vs. Cheeseburger vs. Moose vs. Dalton Castle

God hearing Kevin Kelly try to explain Silas Young's gimmick is the worst. "He's in a baaaad mood...and...he's angry...and he thinks people like Dalton Castle are what's WRONG with society." Really? That's what you got? This wasn't that good, but really who was expecting it to be with these participants. I liked some of Castle's cut off spots. Coleman had some nice moments like a weird little moonsault to the floor that Bob and Cheeseburger whiffed on catching. Moose is one of those guys like Uhaa Nation who is a large impressive black man who has improbably soft offense. His little flipping spear looks so super gentle (and really to use that as the finish directly after Mike Bennett used his spear to set up the finish, come on). Highlight was pretty easily Castle hitting his hardway German on Moose, really slooooowly lifting him up and over. Really impressive spot. Cheeseburger continued his run of terrible by being way late for a pinfall break-up, so Sinclair had to stop the count for no reason before the 3. Evans had his feet on the ropes, but Cheeseburger was clearly supposed to break up the pin. He was way late, Sinclair just stopped counting the pin. And it was immediately before the finish. Tough spot for Sinclair to be in, and after he tried pretending like he had seen Evans' feet on the ropes, but he clearly stopped while still looking down. Yuck.

Corino and Kelly are so bad during these Whitmer segments. I don't know what they think they're going for when they do reactions shots, but they're failing. Kelly is sub-Tenay when it comes to expressing realistic outrage, and Corino does some sort of weird fake cry/trying not to laugh face.

3. ACH vs. Bobby Fish

Hey this was fun, and pretty easily the best match on a show with zero competition for that title. ACH's apron kick looked great and his handspring moonsault was crazy, also liked a couple of his kicks to Fish's calf. End got a little sloppy with kicks landing when they were supposed to miss and then subsequently not sold because they were supposed to miss, and things getting overall way too cooperative. But, I like Fish and ACH has some fun athletic spots, and for a short little TV match this was much more of what I was hoping for.

Better show than last week, but it would have to be historically bad for that to not be the case.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 7/22/15 Review

Episode 200 is a pretty special accomplishment no matter the program. Looks like we're going to look back on some very special clips to remind us of all the magic we've experienced over these 200 weeks.

Hanson vs. Styles seemed pretty fun from the highlights. I really liked the logic behind the Styles Clash set up, with Hanson up top and Styles hitting the Pele kick, then being able to grab Hanson in position from the top rope.

But they also show some real weird highlight clips to celebrate a 200th episode. They showed a Lance Storm singles match! Was Lance Storm vs. Mike Bennett a real highlight of the previous 4 years of television? That's...terrifying. Also, two ReDRagon matches. And a Donovan Dijak singles match. Those all seem like weird things to show as highlights of your prior 200 episodes. I know these are all guys still affiliated with the promotion, I get that. But...this did not make it look like I missed a whole lot by not watching the first 195 episodes of ROH TV. 200 episodes is clearly something worth celebrating, so it's just odd that they didn't actually do anything to celebrate it at all.

1. House of Truth (Jay Lethal, Donovan Dijak, J. Diesel & Truth Martini) vs. The Briscoes, Roderick Strong & ODB

"A match that could main event any building in the world"~Kevin Kelly

Yep. I mean, I guess it technically *could* main event any building in the world. He did not use any sort of "and also make money and/or be successful" qualifier.

And this match really was not good for the time allotted. Martini could have stolen any Jimmy Hart schtick to stooge while being stuck in a match, but really he brought nothing to the table. It shouldn't be a shock that Truth Martini brought nothing to an appearance, but this should have been a shining moment. How easy is it to be the puny manager forced into a match? You've seen all these spots a million times and they always work, but he just does nothing. He's like any other guy in a multi man, he's just not good and can't actually wrestle. Major missed opportunity. Roderick Strong looked really great in this, so things weren't a total waste. I always love seeing Briscoes but they were just kind of killing time here. We get each guy hitting a flip dive and Mark crashing into the guardrail, and then the match climaxes with House of Truth all surrounding ODB and awkwardly implying some sort of weird rape vibe as they all lick their lips and high five. Then she just hits really piss poor forearms to everybody's chest and *spoiler alert* she doesn't actually get raped on TV guys! Man most of this match stunk.

This was pretty easily the worst episode of ROH I've seen on Destination America. I'm sure there have been worse over 199 other episodes, but man this clunked.

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