ROH on HDNet – Episode 090 – 10th January 2011
Ring Of Honor’s Louisville adventures continue this evening. The main event will see World Champion Roderick Strong face Colt Cabana in non-title action – the first time we’ve seen Roddy since his hugely successful end to 2010 when he defeated Davey Richards on two occasions. ‘The Prodigy’ Mike Bennett makes his in-ring ‘debut’ tonight too. We go back to the Davis Arena, and once again have Dave Prazak and Mike Hogewood on commentary.
Mike Bennett vs Nick Dinsmore
In a million years I never would have guessed that ROH would have picked Eugene to be The Prodigy’s first HDNet opponent, but there you go. He emerged onto HDNet at the end of last year with lots of hype and expectation…and promptly announced he’d be World Champion within a year and decided to hassle respected veteran Chris Daniels during the Final Battle iPPV. Can he live up to the hype and deliver an impressive re-debut here?
Dinsmore gets a decent reaction having spent much of his career in OVW. Nothing fancy from the bell with the two guys cautiously going into an elongated wristlock exchange. Bennett shows his confidence by smiling as he stomps Nick in the face. Dinsmore in turn displays his ability to work the mat and his ability really pisses The Prodigy off. Bob Evans quickly steps in to ensure Mike doesn’t lose his temper which is a nice touch. He returns to hit a hanging backbreaker out of the ropes and stays on that back with a body slam then a grounded surfboard. Nick starts nailing him with kicks and elbows…but is lured into a chase situation and gets his feet caught in the ropes. Bennett capitalises with the Spinebuster and takes the win at 06:02
Rating - * - Hugely underwhelming debut, but in Bennett’s defence I think that was largely down to Dinsmore. I actually think he’s a decent wrestling talent, but he was a horrible jobber and didn’t do a whole lot to make The Prodigy look good.
After another lengthy Final Battle 2010 highlights package, Jim Cornette brings the Kings Of Wrestling to the ring for an interview. He wants to know why they haven’t been defending the Tag Titles with any regularity in recent months, and calls out the new #1 contenders – the All Night Express. Remember they beat Colt Cabana and El Generico in Toronto to earn their shot. Rhett is particularly intense, and tells the Kings that his team are all business until they get the belts. Not the best segment, but it’s an honest attempt to start building to their match at the 9th Anniversary Show. Hero and King are great promo guys so their parts were the most effective.
Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly take a few moments to hype their team and why people should take them seriously. Generic in the extreme…
Adam Cole/Kyle O’Reilly vs Mike Posey/Cory Hollis
Future Shock have invested in matching trunks for these tapings and it certainly makes them look much more like a credible team. Posey and Cory are known as 'Alabama Attitude' but are such jobbers they don't get introduced by their team name at all...
O’Reilly and Cole start with some double team kick sequences on Cory. Kyle is hung in the ropes, then into a tree of woe in Posey and Hollis’ corner for some tandem offence. He quickly takes Cory down with another kick flurry, then suplexes Posey down on top of him. Cole takes Hollis out of the game with a jumping enzi…FLYING KNEE TO THE FLOOR BY O’REILLY! TOPE SUICIDA FROM COLE! DOUBLE LUNGBLOWER COMBO! Future Shock win another one at 03:54
Rating - ** - I can’t remember any athletes coming into ROH and looking as comfortable as quickly as Cole and O’Reilly have. As a team they’re great, but their potential as future singles stars as well is really noticeable.
NEXT WEEK – Huge main event as Chris Hero faces Christopher Daniels with the winner getting a TV Title shot.
In anticipation of that, Kyle Durden catches up with the Fallen Angel. He’s fired up at the chance to win some Ring Of Honor gold again.
Roderick Strong vs Colt Cabana
After emerging from a bloody 2010 where he spent most of his time in violent matches against the likes of Kevin Steen and Steve Corino, Cabana has been asking to get back to pure wrestling. He wants the chance to have fun again and work opponents who will fight him with honour and have respect for athletic competition. He’ll also have an ambition to get back into the ROH Title picture, and will dramatically do that if he can beat the reigning World Champion in singles action tonight.
Colt steals Bobby’s microphone to call Truth Martini ‘incontinent and impotent’ which gets a laugh as you might expect. He then sets to work in out-wrestling Martini’s top client with his familiar World Of Sport-influenced routines. He runs so many circles around Roderick that the champion finds himself pitched out of the ring and is left limping around the ring in a daze after three minutes. Foolishly Cabana allows Strong the time to recover though, and Roddy takes full advantage by landing a jumping enzi kick from the apron. He starts grounding Cabana, keeping him off his feet and unable to string together any complex grappling sequences…and when Colt does find a way back to a vertical base Strong quickly finds ways to knock him down again with heavy-duty strikes. Eventually Colt lands a kick to the mouth and begins a comeback from that point. The Curse is blocked so he hits the tornado snap suplex instead for 2. Roddy escapes the Colt 45 as well, but misses the Superkick and eats the double gutbuster combo for another nearfall. Flying Asshole blocked with a kick to the back of the neck, then a jumping knee strike from the champion for his own 2-count. Stronghold applied, hurting both Cabana’s back and the torn hamstring he’s been working through recently. TURNBUCKLE GUTBUSTER BY CABANA! But Strong lands too close to the ropes and manages to kick out again. Superkick…into the Sick Kick. Strong wins at 11:29
Rating - ** - Granted it got better as it went along, but I think Colt’s injury had a damaging affect on this match because it was so slow. These guys have been in ROH together for a long time, and in that time have had some fun matches. This wasn’t one of their better ones…although it was an improvement on Homicide/Claudio.
Tape Rating - * - Not a great episode this week. You sort of wonder whether the HDNet executives sat down and watched this show before making a decision about whether to renew the series for another year. When a 3-minute squash match is the highlight of an hour of television you have problems. Mike Bennett’s debut was hugely underwhelming, and it’s the second week in a row where the main event was very flat. To be fair to the Louisville audience, they seem to be trying to get into things, but both Homicide/Claudio last week and Strong/Cabana here have both seemed like slow-paced and low key house show matches. Last week had the strong Edwards/Briscoe TV Title match, and the energetic WGTT HDNet debut and this week never got close to being that exciting. It’s also a shame they didn’t mention ANY of the matches that take place this coming weekend at the Richmond and Charlotte house shows. Hopefully things pick up next week when we get the Hero/Daniels TV Title #1 contendership match.
ROH on HDNet Episodes 86-90 – Top 5 Matches
5) Kevin Steen vs Kory Chavis (** - Episode 086)
4) Charlie Haas/Shelton Benjamin vs Bravado Brothers (*** - Episode 089)
3) Eddie Edwards vs Mark Briscoe (*** - Episode 089)
2) Holiday Gauntlet Match (*** - Episode 087)
1) Roderick Strong vs Austin Aries (**** - Episode 086)