ROH TV 31st August 2013 Review

This week's edition of Ring of Honor TV saw the World Championship Tournament get into full swing, with two first round matches taking place. ROH's product seems to be reinvigorated as of late, with a real purpose behind what is shown on television. After the strong and some time over powering SCUM storyline, it's great to get back to what Ring of Honor does best, wrestling.

World Championship Tournament First Round Match: 

Mark Briscoe 

vs. 

Adam Cole

The main event this week pitted Adam Cole against a returning Mark Briscoe. We haven't seen Briscoe in the ring since his World Championship loss, to brother Jay Briscoe, at June's Best in the World. Briscoe later suffered a storyline concussion after multiple con-chair-tos at the hands of SCUM's Rhino, as a way to explain Briscoe's absense from the company after his contract ran out. Therefore, I was surprised when they announced that Briscoe would be part of this tournament. Cole has been put forward as one of the favourites for the tournament, down to having a couple of title shots recently, as well as a strong story, that has seen Cole almost turn heel on numerous occasion.

This was the first one on one meeting between Briscoe and Cole, and at points it showed. The early part of the match lacked flow and was difficult to follow, with no real story being put into the match. Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuiness did a good job on commentary putting over the idea of Briscoe's concussion and noting that Cole was delivering a number of blows to Briscoe's head, but with Briscoe not really selling the injury until later on in the match, audio didn't really match the images that were coming up on the screen. The most entertaining part of the match, for me, was when Briscoe launched into his “Redneck Kung-Fu” with numerous chops to Cole's head, and this is where the match really got going. With some well worked near falls, one off of a huge knee from Cole and the other off of Briscoe's Froggy-Bo, I was beginning to get into the contest, with Briscoe finally selling the head injury and beginning to look tired in the ring.

The finish saw referee Todd Sinclair check over Briscoe, for quite some time, holding Cole back, only for Cole to superkick Briscoe in the head and finish him off with his brother's finishing move, The Jay Driller for the pinfall victory and to advance to face Jay Lethal in the Quarter Finals of the tournament. I thought this was a very strong ending, that played off of the concussion angle well, as well as furthering momentum for Cole's heel turn. It was a shame that the earlier part of the match felt so disjointed from the rest of the bout, as the final couple of minutes were very strong. It made sense for Cole to go over here with Briscoe no longer under contract for the company, and to have Briscoe put Cole over gives him a ton of momentum in the tournament.

So, how far do I think Adam Cole can go in this tournament? Pretty far, I wouldn't be surprised to see him make at least the Semi Final stage. I would imagine that at some point during the tournament, we will see the pay-off and Cole will finally turn heel, supposedly with some help from Steve Corino who continues to be referenced as a “friend” of Adam Cole, and from last week's Inside Ring of Honor, we know that Corino is not completely gone from the company. Corino and Cole could make a good on screen duo, with Corino in more of an advisory role than we've seen him in before, but I can't help but thinking that it is way to close to the end of SCUM to bring back Corino on television. Personally, I'd rather see Cole go it alone for sometime, before revealing Corino as the mastermind of it all, maybe even having Cole turn on Corino to really put him over as a heel.

Best of the Rest (In The World)

Elsewhere on ROH TV, we got a confrontation between four of the wrestlers scheduled to take part in the World Championship Tournament. First out was tournament favourite Michael Elgin, who cut a decent promo about not wanting to have to the title handed to him, and not being scared of anyone in the tournament. This brought out former World Champion Kevin Steen, who had a few things to say to Elgin, about when Steen retained his title against Elgin at last October's Glory By Honor. Steen's charisma clashes nicely with Elgin's more serious delivery. Out next was Mike Bennett, accompanied by Maria Kanellis, with Bennett once again looking strong on the microphone, proclaiming himself the future of ROH, whilst the other two were the past. The whole Mike Bennett/Michael Bennett thing though is a bit silly. Last out was Tommaso Ciampa, who went head to head with each of the three men in the ring, before looking straight into the camera and declaring himself the next World Champion to close the segment. Ciampa's entry was refreshing after hearing so much talk from the other three, Ciampa's attitude certainly stands out. It was a good little segment, that was reminiscent of a WWE Raw or Smackdown opening that were common place a few years back.

Elgin, Steen and Ciampa would all have to be considered favourites in the tournament, due to the way they have been booked over the last two years or so. But the really interesting participant in this segment for me was Michael Bennett. Bennett has shuffled around the mid-card for ROH for the last few years, with a couple of World Television title shots, and being chosen to take on veterans like Lance Storm and Jerry Lynn, so this tournament could be used to reposition Bennett higher up the card, this segment was a good start let's see if ROH continue this way for Bennett. The tournament could be used to help a number of talents at the same time, Bennett being one of them, whilst giving new purpose to wrestlers like Roderick Strong.

In another World Championship First Round Match, Karl Anderson took on ACH. The bout was an exciting encounter, taking the form of a David vs. Goliath contest. With Anderson's using power moves and precision to keep ACH grounded throughout the opening part of the match, we were treated to a number of fast paced comebacks from ACH, with a plethora of highflying moves, including a great springboard to the outside. The match built up well with a number of near falls for ACH including one off of The Best 450 Ever, where it seemed like ACH might have pulled off the upset victory. But it wasn't enough for ACH, as after he went for another Best 450 Ever, but missed, Anderson capitalised with an Ace Crusher to pick up the pinfall victory and advance to the quarter finals, where he'll face either Michael Elgin or Paul London. I enjoyed the finish, it quick and pacy with a number of near falls to keep things interesting, with ACH looking competitive until the end. ACH is certainly one to watch in the next few years for Ring of Honor.

Matt Taven was also in action defending his title against Brian Fury. The match was essentially there to get the H.O.T over, with a lot of interference from the group throughout. Fury, at times, looked sloppy with a number of awkward looking moves, including a bridging pinfall attempt that went woefully wrong, which was a shame after Fury put in an impressive performance in the four way match last week. There were two nice false finishes, the first saw Truth Martini distracting the referee, giving Kaycee Ray the opportunity to hit a diving hurracanrana on Fury, with Taven following up with a Frog Splash for a near fall, the other saw Fury use the same move he used to finish Vinny Marseglia last week but to no avail. The finish actually saw Taven win cleanly after hitting Climax for the pinfall victory and to retain his World Television Championship. It was good to see Taven win clean here, as I've mentioned before the best heels are the ones that can win cleanly, but choose not to, therefore this win showing that Taven can win clean, can only be a good thing for the World Television Champion.  

Finally...

My final thoughts on this week's ROH TV.

1. Adam Cole vs. Mark Briscoe could have been a lot better than it was.

2. Michael Bennett is someone who could gain a lot in the ROH World Championship Tournament.

3. ACH is definitely someone to look out for within ROH and Independent wrestler. 

ROH TV 20th July 2013 Review

This week’s Ring of Honor television had been built up for quite some time, with Matt Hardy’s quest for a World Championship match being a focal point of the show for a few months. Of course, once again the show was harmed by being taped so far in advance, and by ROH already announcing that Jay Briscoe had left the company and vacated the World Title.

World Championship Match: 

Jay Briscoe © 

vs. 

Matt Hardy with Steve Corino

Matt Hardy has had something of a career renaissance in Ring of Honor the last ten months, creating a fantastic character that is easy to hate and performing consistently good promos and video spots to back it up. He’s also been helped by the ongoing SCUM storyline which has developed well over the last year and a half, as it gave him a reason to play the character he was and a group that has become not too dissimilar to the Mattitude Followers in 2003/04. The relationship Hardy has developed with SCUM leader Steve Corino is also an interesting one, with Corino seeming to worship Hardy, but you kind of get the feeling that if Hardy stepped out of line, Corino would kick him to the curb, just like he did to Kevin Steen.

Whilst, Matt’s promos and character have been top notch during his ROH run, his matches have been distinctly average, and unfortunately this was the case here, as well. Whilst the match told a decent enough story with Hardy taking advantage of Briscoe’s injured shoulder, Hardy was for the most part over reliant on his Twist of Fate move, which he used a total of four times throughout the match, and after the second attempt had failed to get a pinfall, as an audience member I wrote the move off for the rest of the match, I’m sure in Hardy’s long storied career, he’s picked up more than that move to use as a false finish. Each time, Briscoe would look close to mounting a comeback Hardy would pull out another underhanded tactic, such as hitting Briscoe with his boot, to regain the upper hand, which at times became frustrating to watch as it meant the majority of the match was worked at walking pace.

The ending saw Hardy go for his FIFTH Twist of Fate attempt, only for Briscoe to block and pull Hardy into a small package to pick up the pinfall victory and retain the World Championship. The ending wasn’t exactly an original one, and the fact that we’d seen Hardy hit the Twist of Fate four times before and fail to get a pin cover, it didn’t really have the element of danger that it should have. It’s a shame that such a strong story going into the match couldn’t deliver in terms of what we saw in the ring, as it left the whole build up feeling a little bit flat. It wasn’t an awful match, and technically there weren’t many areas that you could pull the match up on, it just needed a bit more variety and some insertion of pace to help it round of the story well.

After the contest, we went straight into the build for next week’s Steel Cage Warfare match, with SCUM’s Rhino coming out and annihilating Jay with a GORE. Whilst Jay’s brother Mark made a surprise return to attempt to even the odds, SCUM quickly gained control. With fellow SCUM member Jimmy Jacobs, Rhett Titus and Cliff Compton brawling at ringside with Team ROH member Michael Elgin, BJ Whitmer and Jay Lethal, SCUM took control using their signature zip ties to attach Team ROH to the ring ropes, allowing for the real destruction to take place in the ring. With Rhino destroying Mark Briscoe with multiple concertos (he’s obviously been learning from former stablemates Edge and Christian) Matt Hardy headed to the middle rope to take out Jay Briscoe’s arm once and for all with front elbow drop onto a chair that was wrapped around Briscoe’s arm. It was a good finish to the show that built up well for Steel Cage Warfare next week, as well as providing a storyline reason for Jay Briscoe to vacate the World title. 

Best of the Rest (In The World)

The only other match of the night pitted rivals Roderick Strong and Adam Cole in a rematch from June’s Best in the World iPPV. This match wasn’t advertised as it looked like we were getting an enhancement match with Cole facing Will Ferrera. However, with Strong coming out to talk about what happened at Best in the World, where Cole won by countout, with Cole apologising and challenging Strong to a rematch tonight. Strong accepted and we had our opening contest. It was a good set up to a highly anticipated rematch, their contest at Best in the World was one of the best matches on the show, that was left open for a rematch with the countout finish.

In comparison to the World Championship match, this was a much better encounter. The match had the changes in pace that the main event didn’t and therefore allowed them to tell a different story, with each man having periods in control of the match in what was a ultra-competitive contest, with a good combination of strikes, submissions and grapples keeping the match fresh. With the reversals coming thick and fast, as well as a number of near falls, a wrestling cliché appeared as Strong was sent crashing into referee Paul Turner who went crashing to the mat. After both men took each other out, it didn’t take long before Steve Corino, who was on commentary, threw a chain into the ring for Cole, only for Strong to get hold of the chain. With Cole taking Strong out with a Superkick, he saw the chain on Strong’s hand and decided to use it for himself, resulting in a Disqualification victory for Strong. It was another frustrating ending for Cole and Strong, and hopefully the two will be booked against each other in a rubber match soon.

There was also a nice package of interviews from Michael Elgin, Jay Lethal and BJ Whitmer building to next week’s Steel Cage Warfare match. All three men talked about Kevin Steen’s addition to Team ROH, with the trio all seemingly apprehensive about Steen’s involvement. Cleverly, we’ve seen very little of Steen and his team mates in the build up to this match, so it’s been left wide open to how Steen will react in the contest and how all the competitors will interact. We know Team ROH doesn’t like Steen, but they’re going to need him on side if they’re going to defeat SCUM next week, it’s an interesting concept. 

Finally...

What did I learn from this week's ROH on Sinclair?

1. Matt Hardy is currently a lot better at creating a character, than creating a wrestling match.

2. Adam Cole's slow heel turn is working well, the rubber match between he and Roderick Strong should be superb. 

3. Steve Corino is one of ROH's best assets at the moment, both on commentary and elsewhere.

ROH Best in the World 2013 Review

Best in the World was another solid iPPV outing from Ring of Honor, with a number of interesting dynamics in the matches, throughout the show, which certainly helped to keep the show going forward. I didn’t manage to catch the show live, so couldn’t comment on the problems that occurred in the live iPPV stream, however having experienced the problems before I have to say I’m not too upset that this is the last of ROH’s live iPPV’s.

World Championship Match: Jay Briscoe © vs. Mark Briscoe

For me, the idea of two brothers fighting to see who is better, is a much more relatable idea, than say two brothers who had each other. Therefore, I anticipated this contest a lot more, than if say one of the Briscoe’s had turned on the other brother. The build to the contest was handled well with Mark being a logical challenger for Jay and making use of the years they had teamed together, with a quality contest against The American Wolves on ROH Television a few weeks ago. The face vs. face concept is one that is seen a lot more regularly in Ring of Honor than it is in either WWE or TNA, and this allows the competitors to focus on the more competitive element of the contest, rather than worry if they are getting the desired reaction from the crowd.

The contest started off well with some amateur style wrestling, each man exchanging a number of holds, with neither coming out on top, leading to separations each time. This set up the idea of how evenly match the brothers were well, with neither brother showing any signs of domination in the early goings. After the match settled down, it was Mark who took control of the bout, managing to frustrate Jay by outsmarting him on a number of occasions. There was an interesting spot where both men helped each put up a table at ringside, which I’m not sure how it was explained how the use of the table was legal, but it was certainly a unique moment, certainly something I haven’t witnessed before.

In the latter stages of the match, both men took a number of painful looking bumps, with Mark being power slammed from the top rope onto the outside, whilst Jay ended up being put through the table after a Froggy Bow from Mark. The match certainly needed these big moments to lift it to the next level and they worked in terms of pacing the match towards the finish. The finish the contest saw both men going back and forth with punches, even some redneck kung fu from Mark, until Jay eventually hit the Jay Driller for a two count. It took two further Jay Drillers and a Superkick but Jay eventually retained the ROH World Heavyweight Championship.

It was a good match between the two that flowed well and elevated as the match went a long. However, the ending may have been a little too over used by ROH, as we’ve seen similar ending to contests between Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards in 2011-12. Moving on from here, Jay would appear to have a number of challengers including Michael Elgin and Matt Hardy, both of which could produce some great matches, although if the rumours are to be believed The Briscoes are done with Ring of Honor, what that means for the World Title, I don’t know. 

No Disqualification Match: Kevin Steen vs. Matt Hardy w/Steve Corino

I’ve enjoyed the development we’ve seen from Kevin Steen and has probably been the most effective attempt at long term booking we’ve seen from any of the bigger American promotions over the last couple of years. I was sceptical of Ring of Honor bringing in Matt Hardy though, when he made his return last September, however I think they’ve made good use of his popularity whilst also playing to the diehard Ring of Honor, by playing on the reason he is disliked by some internet wrestling fans. The rivalry has been built up to well, since Hardy joined SCUM at the 11^th Anniversary show, with Steen’s reason for disliking Hardy’s participation in the group feeling legitimate and mirroring the feelings of a lot of the fans. ROH’s lean towards the longer build certainly allows these kinds of matches to feel a lot bigger than they would do in WWE with a month build to PPV.

Before the contest, SCUM leader Steve Corino cut a promo putting over Hardy, as well as attempting to get some cheap heat by insulting local heroes. It was a good promo, although I’m not sure how much it was needed, Hardy is more than capable of getting the heat on his own, especially when up against Kevin Steen. Steen replied by asking ROH Commisioner Nigel McGuiness to make the match a No Disqualification Match, Nigel quickly agreed to the change. This was a good decision by ROH, as I don’t think the match would have been nearly as it good as it turned out to be. Steen definitely benefits from this match type, as his style of wrestling works a lot better without the restrictions of a regular wrestling match.

Steen took an early advantage of the No Disqualification rules, with the use of fans crutch and sending Hardy crotch first in the ring post. Starting off so quickly certainly gave the match a fast pace throughout, and definitely brought a new element to the show. The match went on to include a dust bin, using in a nice cannonball spot from Steen, and each one of the tables, ladders and chairs that originally made Hardy a star. With Steen looking to F-5 Hardy through a table, the rest of SCUM quickly came out to help Hardy out. Rhett Titus got a package Piledriver for his troubles, with Hardy getting a near fall soon after with Side Effect. This became a running theme throughout here on in, with everytime Steen would look to be in control, a member of SCUM would come down to turn things around for Hardy. The match could be compared to the Bully Ray/Sting match from Slammiversary this year, however the main difference for me here, was SCUM members inferring separately to help Hardy regain some control, whilst Aces and Eights interference during the pre-mentioned contest, saw four member enter at once and get completely taken out by Sting!

With both men kicking out of the others respective finishing moves, you knew it was going to take something that utilized the No Disqualification gimmick to pick up the win for either Steen or Hardy. Hardy attempted to do so with a Side Effect onto the Ladder but this only managed a near fall. With help from Cliff Compton, Hardy set up two chairs, it was teased for a moment that a defiant Steen who spat in Hardy’s face might pull off a repeat of what we’ve seen a number of times in ROH and F-5 Hardy onto the chairs, however this was not to be the case with Hardy quickly gaining control and hitting a Twist of Fate onto the chairs for the victory. It was a decent enough contest and allowed Hardy and SCUM to pick up a victory somewhere on the card, but when compared to Steen’s similar matches against the likes of El Generico and Jimmy Jacobs, it doesn’t stand up that well. 

World Tag Team Championship Three Way: C&C Wrestle Factory vs. reDRagon © vs. SCUM (Cliff Compton & Rhett Titus)

The dynamic here was another interesting one, as we had the heel tag team champions reDRagon, defending their gold against the face team of C&C Wrestle Factory, as well SCUM’s team of Cliff Compton and Rhett Titus, with essentially two heel tag teams, the make up of the match should have been cut and dry, however with one of the heel teams still representing Ring of Honor the other representing SCUM, it certainly gave it an air of unpredictability. The way the match was built up also gave it an exciting feel, with C&C winning a number one contenders match, but with SCUM already holding a victory over C&C, it was difficult to really say which of the two contenders had the momentum going into the bout.

Early on in the bout reDRagon and C&C Wrestle Factory worked together to take out SCUM, but drawing on the elements talked about earlier reDRagon quickly turned on C&C and the dynamic of the match was laid out clearly for all to see. ROH went for the idea of two people in the ring at one time, with the other four on the outside waiting to get tagged in. I can’t say this is my favourite configuration for this type of match up, mainly because someone usually has to take an illogical tag at least once during the match and eventually has to break out of the mould to head towards a finish. The better parts of this match for me, were the parts pitting reDRagon against C&C Wrestle Factory as the two strung together some exciting move sequences, unfortunately Compton & Titus didn’t quite seem to fit with the style of the match those two teams wanted to have and don’t quite work as a team for me.

Unfortunately, it was the sluggishness of the SCUM team that let the ending of the match down, with Cedric Alexander hitting Overtime on Kyle O’Reilly, it took what felt like an age for Compton and Titus to pull O’Reilly out of the ring to prevent the pinfall. SCUM were then out of place for a Caprice Coleman dive, making it seems like Coleman hardly touched them, yet they were meant to stay down for the finish of the match. reDRagon retained the title after Alexander hit a Brainbuster on O’Reilly only to receive a kick to the back of the head from Bobby Fish who draped O’Reilly over Alexander for the victory. This finish would have been helped from being worked a lot quicker and closer and generally felt like a bit of a let down.

The match itself wasn’t an awful contest, we aren’t talking Great Khali in terms of slowness either by no means. It was enjoyable, but I feel it would have been a lot better match if it were just a straight forward tag team match between any combinations of these teams, unfortunately attempting to mix all three styles of these tag teams didn’t quite pay off. I know I’ve said a lot of negative stuff here about Compton and Titus, however I actually do like both men, I just don’t think they make a particularly great team to watch in the ring, hopefully they both find new roles in ROH once the SCUM angle is over and done with.

Best of the Rest (in the World)

Matt Taven defended his World Television Champion in a Three Way with a similar dynamic to the Tag Team Championship Three Way, seeing ROH face Jay Lethal and SCUM member Jimmy Jacobs going after the belt. Personally, I felt that the styles of these three men meshed together a lot better than the tag team match, certainly made for a much more enjoyable contest to watch. The match also made a better use of the dynamic it had present, with each of the competitors happy to take out anyone in the match, we didn’t see a lot of double teaming because of this. I’ve said before that a three way type bout is at it’s best when all three competitors are involved for the optimum amount of time, however in this match we had more than three people involved, we had six! Yes, Television Champion Matt Taven was accompanied by not just Truth Martini but two Hoopla Hotties as well, all of whom got involved during the contest.

 In between the interference there were number of nice three man spots, the highlight for me being Jimmy Jacobs stopping Taven’s Arm Trap Headlock Driver attempt on Lethal, to hit a Sliced Bread #2 on the Television Champion and straight in a Spinning Head Scissors on Lethal. The ending saw all three of Taven’s associates get involved, including Scarlett losing her top, much to the delight of the Du Burns Arena, until Jay Lethal hit Selezia with a Superkick as the powerful Hoopla Hotties looked to be attempting a version of Sheamus’ White Noise. Jacobs some how managed to hit Lethal with a version the Lethal Injection but with  Truth Martini holding onto Jacobs, Taven slid in to retain his championship. It was an enjoyable match, and the ending would seem to tease future face turn for Jacobs as he really should have won the championship, a possible match with Matt Hardy could be on the cards.

In another interesting twist of dynamic, we had two faces go at it once again, in Tommasso Ciampa and Michael Elgin, to finish up the first half. However, with both men taking similar paths in Ring of Honor after leaving two major heel groups in ROH, in The House of Truth and The Embassy. The match proved that two big powerful men in the ring doesn’t have to be boring. The match was brutal contest, with a number of painful looking spots, including use of the hard floor on the outside (the mats had been removed) with Elgin suplexing Ciampa onto the floor, as well as a Kryptonite Krunch from Ciampa.

It was hard hitting through out, with some nice selling (and no selling) from both men. It looked like Ciampa might have got the win after managing to hit Project Ciampa on Elgin, only for Elgin to get his foot on the rope. Elgin eventually picked up the victory, after a number of hard strike and finishing up with the Decapitation Lariat for the pinfall. It was an unusual ending, after such a spot laden brutal match, but certainly helped to make both men look very credible competitors and allows Elgin to go strong into his ROH World Title match in August. QT Marshall tried to pick the bones after the match, but Elgin and Ciampa had enough about them to see off QT with just a look. QT seems to be becoming ROH’s comedy heel along side R.D. Evans, a role which is perhaps below him. 

Adam Cole and Roderick Strong were also in action in a singles contest. As expected the match was a great technical display by both men, with a number of different holds exchanged throughout. Cole logically focused on Strong’s leg for most of the match, in an attempt to soften up the leg for a possible Figure Four Leg Lock latter on in the contest. The end of the match saw Cole superkick Strong through the timekeepers table, with Cole attempting to get Strong back in the ring for the pin, he instead decided to take the countout victory. It was a clever move, that finally seemed to cement Cole’s slow heel turn that we’ve seen since his title shot at Border Wars. I’m interested see where Adam Cole goes from here, and hopefully a much more heated rivalry with Strong could be on the cards.

The under card also featured a very good tag team contest between The American Wolves and Adrenaline Rush. The Wolves certainly did a lot to help the younger team in this match, in terms of making them look like a credible tag team, with the match being pretty much even for most of the bout. There was some great double team work through out from both teams, but Adrenaline Rush’s offense certainly stood out because it looked like they might pull out an upset victory during these times. The ending saw ACH miss a 450 splash allowing Davey Richards to pick up the victory for the American Wolves. With ROH losing a number of tag teams of the last two years including Kings of Wrestling, Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team, The All Night Express and now The Briscoes, Ring of Honor could really do with some more new teams, like Adrenaline Rush, I look forward to seeing more out of them in the future.

The show kicked off with BJ Whitmer taking on Mike Bennett. It was decent opening contest but nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Bennett worked over Whitmer for a lot of the match, until Whitmer began to no sell punches to make a comeback, which involved some nice suplexes from Whitmer. The ending saw Brutal Bob Evans try to get involved, only to get dispatched by Whitmer, with Bennett distracted by Evans, Whitmer hit an Exploder Suplex for the victory. It was a good ending but only to set up what happened afterwards with Maria Kanellis blaming Brutal Bob for the loss and Bennett to seemingly dump Evans from the group. This seemed like a logical move and probably should have been done a long time ago with Brutal Bob seemingly like a third wheel for the entertaining duo of Bennett and Kanellis. 

Finally...

What have we learned from Best in the World 2013?

1. The Briscoes are as exciting to watch as opponents as they are as a Tag Team.

2. Matt Hardy is still capable of putting on a good match, even if it wasn't one of Steen's bests (He's set the bar pretty high in those kinds of matches)

3. Steve Corino and Nigel McGuiness are both entertaining commentators, but I couldn't listen to Corino for an entire iPPV.

ROH TV 8th June 2013 Review

This is our first review of Ring of Honor for this blog and I have to admit I haven’t managed to catch up with Ring of Honor for some time so I was a bit out of the loop in terms of storyline. However what did surprise was how easy it was to jump in, with Nigel McGuiness and Kevin Kelly doing an excellent job on commentary explaining what was going into each match and story.

The American Wolves vs. The Briscoe Brothers

Now any who’s watched any Ring of Honor over its rich eleven year history will know that the American Wolves and The Briscoe Brothers are two of the best tag teams the promotion has ever seen. With a lot of a history between not only the two teams, but the tag partners themselves, including numerous World Title match between Wolves’ Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards. We now had an added factor to this match, with Best in the World just two weeks away, where older brother Jay Briscoe will defend his ROH World Championship against little brother Mark, how would the Briscoe’s work together in this match?

The match built up slowly throughout, starting with some good quality grappling between Eddie Edwards and Mark Briscoe and going from there. With both teams having control of the match for periods and both getting in some interesting double team manoeuvres and reversals kept the match running at a fast pace.  There was a fantastic section where the momentum switches for both teams were so quick it was difficult to keep track of who was in control until a beautiful arm bar transition from Davey Richards was broken up with a Froggy Bow from Mark Briscoe.

The ending came when Davey ducked a punch from Mark who inadvertently hit his brother. With Jay out of the equation, Richards got Mark in a Tombstone Piledriver position, with Edwards delivering a swift kick to the head, followed up by the Piledriver for the win. It was a good ending to a fantastic television contest, it would have been nice to see these two teams go at it for a little longer but with Pay-Per-View contests to build up it’s understandable they went for this ending.

With the Briscoe’s costing each other the victory in this contest, it will be interesting to see how this plays out in their contest at Best in the World. In order from them both to stay high up the Ring of Honor card prior to the pay-per-view it would be expected that one of them will have to turn on the other during or after the bout, or at least develop some bitterness to continue the rivalry, similar to what happened last year between The American Wolves. 

Best of the Rest

The SCUM storyline continued this week with Steve Corino coming out with Jimmy Jacobs, Cliff Compton and Rhett Titus. Corino cut a good promo on Nigel McGuiness, claiming McGuiness deliberately left Jacobs, Compton and Corino out of Number One Contenders matches last week. McGuiness left the commentary desk and got in ring, being joined by Jay Lethal and C&C Wrestlefactory. With Corino still spouting McGuiness kept quiet instead just continuing to stare out Corino whilst the SCUM and ROH competitors went toe to toe in the ring. It was good idea to keep McGuiness quiet as it showed he’d rather let the actions of his team speak and built the numerous match between the two at Best in the World well.

Whilst the three biggest companies in the USA all have major factions dominating their storylines at the moment, SCUM is closer in comparision to Aces and Eights in TNA, than it is to WWE’s The Shield. Whilst TNA on numerous occasion has made Aces and Eights look weak against it’s guys, ROH has kept SCUM looking strong, even after losing former leader Kevin Steen. Therefore, once SCUM get inevitably defeated by the Ring of Honor faithful, either at Best in the World or later on, it will be a much bigger deal and help elevate their opponent going forward.

The ROH World Television Champion, Matt Taven was also in action. Taven’s manager Truth Martini, flanked by the Hoopla Hotties, offered up an open challenge to the lockeroom for a Proving Ground match with Taven. The challenge was answer by Pepper Parks. Parks hasn’t been seen on ROH TV before, but McGuiness and Kelly did a good job of building him up on commentary, as well as a nice pre-match promo from Parks. It was a decent match between these two, but it felt like it could have been a lot better with neither man really hitting top gear throughout the match. Taven picked up the victory with an interesting and dangerous looking varations of the DDT. It did it’s job of building Taven further into his Best in the World title defense against Jay Lethal and Jimmy Jacobs.

Tommaso Ciampa had his in-ring return against a debuting Rip Impact. The result of the match was obvious and this was pretty much a squash as Ciampa dominated. Impact did get a surprising amount of offence in, managing to reverse a Project Ciampa attempt. Ciampa sent a message to his Best in the World opponent Michael Elgin by holding a vertical suplex for a good time, which drew out Elgin to ringside. With Elgin’s distraction giving Impact the upperhand, Rip headed for the top rope, only to be met with a devastating knee to the head from Ciampa, who finished off the match with an Air Raid Crash for the second rope. Not a particularly memorable contest but allowed the Ciampa and Elgin rivalry to develop in what could be a fascinating story between the two power houses. Elgin continued to put over the rivalry in an intense backstage promo for Inside ROH later in the night.

Inside ROH also featured good promos from Kevin Steen and Adam Cole. Steen built his rivalry with Matt Hardy in a fascinating interview, where the hatred Steen has for Hardy came across well, finishing by saying he would remove the cancer from ROH, that cancer being Matt Hardy. Adam Cole has been teasing a heel turn since his Border Wars match with Jay Briscoe and this looks like it’s about to happen. A new look Cole, revealed he’d realised all that matters any more is wins and losses, as well as putting over his Best in the World opponent Roderick Strong.

Finally…

What have we learnt from this weeks ROH on Sinclair?

1. American Wolves and Briscoe Brothers have been surprisingly overlooked by bigger companies.

2. Steve Corino has found a great role in the leader of SCUM.

3. Nigel McGuiness and Kevin Kelly are probably the best commentary pairing in wrestling today.

Announced for next week's ROH on Sinclair (Road Rage Edition)

World Championship Match: Jay Briscoe (C) vs. BJ Whitmer