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.

Read more!

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

1. Young Bucks vs. The Addiction

Kazarian's vest is still one of the more embarrassing pieces of wardrobe you've seen, but I actually like Daniels' General's Jacket, even though I assume it means something dorky like RING GENERAL.....in fact now I'm stunned it does not just say RING GENERAL in large letters across the back. The jacket does have tons of little badges, most likely awarded to him for "Most Times Overshooting Your Finisher" and "Overuse of Abdominal Stretch Behind Ref's Back" amongst others. This was a match of two different parts, separated by an ambitiously terrible piece of Daniels offense. First half was fine, but it was the same Bucks match you've seen before, and Daniels/Kazarian don't take their offense as well as other teams. The Bucks' stuff looked good, I just really hate how Daniels takes offense. The finishing run was real hot though, with superkicks (duh) all around, some well timed interference with the Kingdom, guys leaving and entering the ring, working spots in and out. The Bucks' timing kept it all together and it all built to the Meltzer Driver with Daniels pulling the ref out and just the last moment. Great false finish, actually got duped into thinking the Bucks were winning it. Daniels later runs in with some horrible belt shots, and it all led to the announcement of an awful sounding triple threat tag match....but that finishing run was hot and ain't nothing gonna change that.

2. Roderick Strong vs. Jay Lethal

New Japan main event epic as Ring of Honor main event legendary classic. Did not work. 2015 Jay Lethal feels a lot like 2003-05 HHH. He has his idea of a main event epic, and he's going to do it all, even if he's not terribly good at it. The few "stand in the middle of the ring" punching segments were awful, Lethal looks like he's been getting worked punch training from Matt Bentley. I mean they were bad, Girl Scout gently knocking (or TAPPING for you crossword enthusiasts hung up on  "gently knocking". Also, later in the puzzle, the game played with curved wicker baskets is "Jai Alai") on a door, and he insists on doing these standoffs a lot. Too much. We get the House of Truth frequently interferring which was odd since a major part of the first match was Chris Sabin immediately getting tossed the first time he interferred. House of Truth aren't that good, but Dijak at least took a great bump into the rails off a Strong dropkick. Strong was not great in the match, just not as bad as lethal. Strong has had a fairly must see year so far, but here he looked off, punches looked weak, some of his knees which often look brutal looked more like thigh slaps accompanied by a kneeing motion. And this match got some tiiiiiiime. That added to the 2005 HHH NWA touring champ epic SLOG as it goes almost 25 without having anywhere near enough happening to fill that time. Lethal kept transitioning back to offense with a superkick, all match long, and it just feels weird to have this many superkicks per show, when we're supposed to buy them as 2 counts while also viewing them as transitional. Lethal got kind of famous aping Macho Man, and now that he's established he's started aping Shawn Michaels and HHH, which is an impressive step backward. And just like that I realize Lethal's horrible punches remind me of Michaels' horrible punches. Lethal should keep doing that superkick, change his name to Shane Lethal, and work a 1997 east coast indies tribute gimmick. The Lethal Injection is an impossibly preposterous finisher for anybody to be using, let alone your figurehead singles champion. Nobody can look natural standing around that long waiting for a handspring. Well, maybe Finlay could. But how upsetting would it be for Finlay to return to pro wrestling only to wrestle Shane Lethal? Awful moveset, misguided match, Corino on commentary is horrible. Bluucch.

Read more!

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.

Read more!

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

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

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

2. Adam Page vs. Watanabe

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

3. Adam Cole vs. AJ Styles

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

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

Read more!