ROH on Sinclair – Episode 010 – 26th November 2011
Less than a month to go until Final Battle, and there’s plenty on tap for tonight’s episode. Jim Cornette will address the Kevin Steen situation. The anticipation for the big World Title Match is dialled up a notch as we go inside Eddie Edwards’ training camp with Dan Severn. The Briscoes look to make a statement and piss off the Tag Champions by beating Coleman and Alexander in less time than WGTT did. All that, plus a huge TV Title rematch with Jay Lethal defending the belt against the man he took it from – El Generico. Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness are in Louisville, KY.
Caprice Coleman/Cedric Alexander vs Jay Briscoe/Mark Briscoe
This is a big chance for C&C to impress on television, facing the most decorated tag team in ROH history. And it’s an opportunity the Briscoes actually extended to them. Jay and Mark found it funny that it took Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team 13+ minutes to beat Coleman and Alexander when they stepped into the Proving Ground a few weeks ago. The 6-time former Tag Champions are looking to beat them in less time, making a statement as we build to Final Battle.
The Briscoes start out with double teams on Cedric, but Coleman comes to his partner’s rescue with a springboard dropkick. SPRINGBOARD SUICIDE DIVE BY ALEXANDER! The high risk offence has actually given C&C the early advantage here! It soon changes when Jay strolls across the apron to take a cheap shot at Alexander – quickly followed by an equally illegal shot to Coleman’s spine too. WGTT come out with chairs and chase the Briscoes away. I guess that’s a no contest at 03:19…
Rating - * - Some of the action between the two teams was fun. Sadly that was curtailed for a slightly pointless, unimaginative run-in which ruined the match and made Haas and Benjamin look like pussies. If they were so mad they wanted to hit the Briscoes with chairs, why haven’t they done it already? Why wait till the match started? Having them run out, unprovoked, 3 minutes into the match just makes them look scared that the Briscoes are better than them and WOULD have beaten C&C more quickly than they could. Lousy booking…
Michael Elgin vs Sean Casey/Raphael Constantine
Apparently Truth Martini asked ROH to find some guys to work a handicap match against Elgin. Having been crowned 2011 Survival Of The Fittest winner, Martini now has the job of moulding Unbreakable into a World Title calibre athlete before he finally claims his title shot.
Casey looks almost identical to Mickey Rourke’s character in ‘The Wrestler’. On commentary Martini retracts his offer for Richards to join House Of Truth but is still actively recruiting Eddie Edwards. Elgin suplexes both opponents at once as if it was the easiest thing in the world. He then picks Raphael up for an even easier stalling vertical suplex. Casey and Constantine try some sloppy double teams before regular programming is restored and they’re back to getting their asses kicked. Michael nearly wins it by throwing Constantine into his own partner. Elgin nearly MURDERS Raphael with a pancake then scoops both opponents up for a DOUBLE ALABAMASLAM! He wins at 05:02
Rating - DUD - I presume the jobbers work for OVW and Cornette likes them, hence why this match inexplicably got almost twice as much time as Briscoes/C&C. The sooner ROH moves the tapings to Baltimore and moves away from Jim’s local promotion cronies the better. As a match it was far too long to be effective as a squash…and the two enhancement talents looked crap which didn’t help
Speaking of Cornette, he appears on screen to discuss Kevin Steen. He has a settlement offer ready, and wants Steen and his legal team, as well as Steve Corino and Jimmy Jacobs to meet him in the ring next week so he can present it…
SIDENOTE – This now the THIRD set of tapings. Why are they still running the same Best In The World DVD commercial? There have been like…6 DVD shows since then, including an iPPV with two MOTYC’s on it. Surely it would be in the promotion’s best interests to advertise them on television?
INSIDE ROH – ROH cameras catch up with Eddie Edwards as he trains with Dan Severn. ‘The Beast’ says it was his idea to keep his identity as Eddie’s trainer a secret, whilst Edwards blames Kyle O’Reilly for ratting him out and creating tension between the Wolves. Meanwhile at ‘Camp Strong’, Roderick hits on women and continues to hype the Roderick Strong Invitational at Final Battle.
Jay Lethal vs El Generico – ROH TV Title Match
This is a rematch from Episode 2, when Generico made his first defence of his Television Championship. They battled to a 15-minute time limit draw, and both insisted on overtime to determine a winner. That turned out to be a bad decision for the luchador as Jay managed to score the victory and the title. Lethal has held the belt since then, getting past the challenge of Mike Bennett in another TV Title time-limit draw a few weeks ago. The Prodigy will be waiting in the wings to face the winner…
Speaking of Bennett, he pulls up a chair and sits at ringside to watch the action. The first minute is spent engaging in some seamless chain wrestling. Much as with last time, Lethal looks to have a slight power advantage which Generico looks to negate by utilising his speed. But he is noticeably more aggressive than he was first time round, trapping the champion in the corner and hammering him with big chops and elbows. Split-legged moonsault scores for 2. Jay knocks him out of the ring, right into the laps of Bennett and Bob Evans as we go to commercials. When we return Lethal is dominant, having followed the challenger to the outside before hitting a big superkick. Back in the ring he gets a nearfall with the hiptoss dropkick combo. He repeatedly chops Generico but, despite their ferocity, they only seem to motivate the luchador who fights back to hit a Blue Thunder Driver. Michinoku Driver scores as well! Yakuza Kick countered with a pop-up neckbreaker for 2 as we go past the 12-minute mark. On the outside Mike Bennett has actually put the TV Title around his waist…as inside Jay gets 2 with Lethal Injection #3. YAKUZA KICK! HALF NELSON SUPLEX! LETHAL NO SELLS AND KICKS GENERICO IN THE FACE! Both men down with just a minute remaining in the time limit! Jay falls out of the ring and pauses to take a swing at The Prodigy. LETHAL INJECTION #1! With less than ten seconds left…LETHAL INJECTION #2! The 15:00 time limit expires (13:24 shown), with Mike Bennett distracting the referee even though Jay had the match won.
Rating - *** - More solid action between Lethal and Generico, who certainly mesh well as opponents. The lack of a barn-burning overtime finale and the addition of shenanigans involving Mike Bennett mean this wasn’t in the same league as the first match…but it was a fun sequel and did a decent job sewing the seeds for future bouts between the three top guys in the TV Title picture. This is the first time since the inception of this championship there has been a clear TV Title division with multiple ‘top’ contenders all gunning for position and trading wins/draws/losses.
Lethal and Bennett start brawling…and Generico crashes their party by jumping onto both of them with a somersault plancha.
NEXT WEEK – Kevin Steen will be in the Davis Arena for the settlement offer, and the scheduled main event is a Future Shock/Young Bucks rematch from Best In The World.
Tape Rating - ** - Once again the undercard absolutely sucked on this episode. I’m not trashing squash matches altogether. I understand their significance to a weekly televised broadcast and I fully appreciate you that guys like Ciampa and Elgin need them as they can’t be mowing down the ‘regular’ roster every week without getting very stale. But these OVW guys just aren’t very good. None of them are anything approaching the high in-ring standards set by ROH (on the evidence we’ve been presented with thus far) and it makes the company look bad. Giving Casey and Constantine FIVE MINUTES of TV time in a squash where they both looked f*cking appalling is way too long. And giving them that time, whilst depriving Coleman and Alexander (two legitimate talents who actually have something to offer and don’t work a WWE knock-off style) of a chance to produce a decent match with the Briscoes is absolutely criminal. Once again the main event and ‘Inside ROH’ segment salvaged the show though. I love that there is a real TV Title division with feuds. The multiple draws are starting to grate, but it does put over how evenly matched Lethal, Generico and Bennett are. The stuff with Edwards and Severn was effective too – certainly better than last week which just had Richards whining.
ROH on SBG Episodes 6-10 – Top 5 Matches
5) Charlie Haas/Shelton Benjamin vs Caprice Coleman/Cedric Alexander (*** - Episode 007)
4) Jay Lethal vs El Generico (*** - Episode 010)
3) Roderick Strong vs Kyle O’Reilly (*** - Episode 006)
2) Davey Richards vs Kyle O’Reilly (**** - Episode 009)
1) American Wolves vs Roderick Strong/Michael Elgin (**** - Episode 008)