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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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 7/8/15 Review

1. Watanabe vs. Dalton Castle

Good god why is Watanabe on TV so much!? I mean this guy just brings nothing to the table. I take that back, he had a nice little side thrust headbutt here. But the rest of the time he works real loose (his stomach kicks are so so bad) and works real slow. There's just so much down time in Watanabe matches. Castle looked better (not surprisingly) in his match against Liger, but he gamely tries to make Watanabe's offense look somewhat painful here. We have to sit through an interminable small package reversal sequence where they roll unconvincingly around the ring, the ref occasionally counting pinfalls even though shoulders were never touching mat. But Castle does hit a sick deadlift German, and I am a total sucker for a great deadlift German suplex. Castle's looked killer, really hanging Watanabe there like a pendulum before beginning that ascent. Highlight of the match. Although after the the match was over, Castle lies down on a man bench consisting of his two eunuchs. THAT is awesome.

Long Truth Martini promo with Jay Lethal. The fans cloyingly chant "You deserve it!" at Lethal. Yuck. Is there anybody in the fed that the fans REALLY dislike? Or even sorta dislike? Everybody gets chants. Everybody is awesome. Watanabe gets chants, presumably because he wrestled in New Japan. Who is an actual heel here? This whole interview all builds to whether he plans on vacating the TV title or if he plans on defending both titles on shows in separate matches. It's weird as he talks about valiantly defending both titles because he's a fighting champion, but also telling the fans to shut up. So he's a valiant heel? A bad guy who does heroic things? He also says the phrase "snowball effect" but it sounds like "snuggle effect". I wanna know what the snuggle effect is!! An overdose of coziness!!

2. Adam Cole, Michael Bennett & Matt Taven vs. Michael Elgin & reDRagon

"Elgin looks like he's having fun again in the ring". Man Corino and Kelly are BAD. You should have heard the way Corino said Elgin is "having fun". It's not like he finished rampaging through the other team and then Corino shouted "Elgin's having fun in there!!!" He said it more like two mothers talking about the daughter of another mother, who had recently had her stomach pumped because she took too many pills. And she had been volunteer assistant coaching the local high school's girl's lacrosse team and these two moms sitting at one of their respective dining room tables goes "You know Jessica's really having fun again! She lost her smile there for awhile but you should see her with these girls! She's really having fun again. Bless her heart." Neither of them think Jessica is actually okay. They just wanted to gossip about her without sounding like gossips.

And this match is just kind of maddeningly bad. Really bad in an in your face kind of way. This is about 20 minutes of Elgin doing tons of offense and big moves to the opposing three guys, and then kicking out of everything they throw at him. reDRagon are very much afterthoughts in this save for one section in the middle, the rest is ALL Elgin working a 2003 HHH routine and just being the ultra mega super man. This whole match was just set up as a Michael Elgin spot exhibition. This same crowd who was cheering and chanting wildly for WATANABE of all people actually chant "This match sucks". And it was moments after Kelly and Corino were talking about what a tremendous main event we were witnessing. A lot of guys in this didn't look good. Matt Taven is the master of missing offense that never would have hit, just to set up an opponent's offense. Here he did an axe handle off the top rope that landed him nowhere near anybody, just to get kicked by O'Reilly. I did like Taven setting up a boot choke in the corner by yelling "Stacy Keibler!!" before choking a guy out with one of his long gams. O'Reilly himself regularly looks lousy, with poor strikes (his running body kick in the corner looked especially terrible) and then just looking really awkward getting into position for thing. Him setting up a Fujiwara armbar variation took longer to apply than Undertaker's old Devil's Butthole or whatever UT's submission was called. Fish looked good in his couple brief moments, dug his nice slingshot senton over the turnbuckles. We do get a couple fun dives, we get Elgin powerbombing Taven onto everybody over the top to the floor, and we got Elgin running through every single piece of offense that he's ever seen anybody do ever. Elgin throws nice elbows. He can throw a nice clothesline. His power offense looks good. But holy shit. The layout of this match was just...stunning.

But we get a Mark Briscoe match next week, so yay.

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