ROH on Sinclair – Episode 065 – 15th December 2012
This is ROH’s final TV broadcast before Final Battle. The ppv is on a Sunday afternoon, meaning they actually crammed in five episodes worth of content at these tapings and get an extra episode to give the big show a hard sell. The go-home show this evening features a main event of Jay Briscoe taking on Steve Corino in a Street Fight…presumably alongside some squash matches and a whole lot of Kevin Kelly talking about how great FB2012 will be. He is joined by Caleb Seltzer in Pittsburgh, PA.
Davey Richards vs Vinny Marseglia
ROH were pretty rough with Davey at these tapings. He’s been assaulted by O’Reilly and Fish, went through a war with Michael Elgin and still has to come back out for an enhancement match against one of ROH’s job squad in Marseglia. He looks a little worse for wear as he stumbles through the curtain too. This is his last chance to lay down a marker ahead of his clash with reDRagon and the supposed reunion of the American Wolves
Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish watch ominously from the entrance ramp as Davey takes it to Marseglia in the opening moments. Vinny seizes his chance to shine and wipes Richards out with a somersault pescado then gets a nearfall with a Russian legsweep. He makes the mistake of trying to match submission holds with Davey though, finding his armbar easily countered into a Trailer Hitch. Arm capture cloverleaf applied next, but Richards is allowing himself to get distracted by Bobby and Kyle and Marseglia finds a way to escape. Sliding enzi wins it for Davey at 04:10
Rating - * - A little long for what it was, and it seems extremely harsh to make Davey go out there and wrestle this having done so much work at these tapings already. Marseglia has a good look, but to me just doesn’t look fluent or fast enough in the ring to cut it at an ROH level yet. Everything he does looks so clumsy and forced.
Kevin Kelly brings Mike Mondo to the ring for an interview. He’s on crutches, and deserves the standing ovation he gets for his performance at Glory By Honor. He cuts an emotional promo about his love of wrestling, his love of ROH and his hatred of the Spirit Squad gimmick. Roderick Strong interrupts to complain that Mondo is getting TV time instead of him. He shoves Mondo over, tries to hijack his interview…only to be halted by Michael Elgin. Truth Martini emerges too trying to reason with them both, but succeeding only in distracting Elgin for long enough to allow Roddy to nail him with one of Mondo’s crutches.
INSIDE ROH – As you’d expect as we’re within 24 hours of the last ppv of the year, this is nothing but a massive shill for Final Battle. Not a lot of fresh content to be seen here, although Mike Bennett is revealed as Jerry Lynn’s opponent for his final ROH match. Eddie Edwards still hasn’t confirmed that he’ll accept the American Wolves reunion either.
Caprice Coleman and Cedric Alexander tell Veda Scott that they are watching the main event and hoping Corino sustains an injury.
Steve Corino vs Jay Briscoe – Street Fight
The Briscoes and SCUM have had issues for months…but the bigger issue here is the Tag Title situation. The Briscoes are part of the three-way sudden death shoot-out for the ROH Tag Titles tomorrow afternoon when they challenge SCUM alongside the C&C WrestleFactory. Therefore this match represents a chance for both combatants to do some real damage ahead of the ppv.
Corino genuinely seems to be planning to wrestle this match in his suit. He just about manages to remove his jacket and tie before the fists start to fly. Within a minute the brawl is on the floor where both men absorb some heavy bumps against the guardrails. A fan holds a chair up for Jay to throw Corino into…although Steve reverses it and gives the ringside fan a real shock as they end up cracking the popular Briscoe in the face! A table is set up at ringside and Steve soon finds himself draped across it. DOUBLE STOMP THROUGH THE TABLE! That’s where we go to commercials, and things have taken a turn for the strange when we return – with Briscoe beating on Corino with a stolen shoe. He wedges chairs in all four turnbuckles…but can’t use them as Jimmy Jacobs hops onto the apron to distract him. Corino levels Jay with a roll of quarters for 2. Jacobs tries to get involved again, which of course brings Mark to the ring. He drops Jimmy on his neck with an urinage suplex…with Jay whipping Corino into three of the four chair-enforced turnbuckles. Turnbuckle flatliner…on a chair! Mark brings a wheelbarrow full of chairs to ringside and starts his very own one-man chair riot. It works against his brother though, with Corino scooping him up for a brutal chair slam. He positions a table in the corner, pausing every so often to fling a chair at Jay’s face. BRAINBUSTER THROUGH AN OPEN CHAIR! Somehow Briscoe kicks out at 2! Corino is in disbelief and positions a second open chair next to that first one. Of course, that takes too long and Jay pops up for a DVD THROUGH THE CHAIRS! Crazy Mark is back, nearly tearing down the whole entrance scaffold as he tries to bring a segment of guardrail to the ring to assist his brother. Jimmy Jacobs is back up and saves Corino, who grabs Jay for a SAITO SUPLEX INTO A TABLE! In classic Corino fashion, he sets up the barrier segment amongst four open chairs. They fight on the turnbuckles just over it…with Mark and Jacobs brawling underneath them. BRISCOE SUPERPLEXES CORINO THROUGH THE GUARDRAILS! Horrifying landing for Corino, and Briscoe wins it at 14:22 (shown). People don’t even notice though, as Coleman and Alexander are out too, climbing opposing turnbuckles for STEREO SUICIDE DIVES TO THE FLOOR! The arena is a mess and there are bodies everywhere!
Rating - **** - Technically this was a 3* match. It wasn’t particularly clever or well-worked. But the emotion was real. The crowd heat was genuine, and the chaos at the end didn’t feel forced at all. You had SCUM being dicks, Mark being the crazy redneck idiot we all love, some tremendous hardcore wrestling (some of the most extreme stuff we’ve seen on Sinclair thus far) and a massively memorable concluding spot. I think Corino suffered a legit injury in this match, which should show you just how ferocious this fighting was. For a TV main event this was almost needlessly violent, but you can’t deny it was hugely entertaining to watch.
And with everyone else down here comes Kevin Steen! He takes a seat, with a Generico mask over his hand like a puppet. It’s quite a gripping little promo, with Steen talking about how he can’t get over losing to Generico at Final Battle 2010, harassing Kevin Kelly at his table and more. In a Ladder War for the World Title, he has no idea what he’s capable of and what he’ll do to Generico to ensure he doesn’t become ROH Champion come December 17th.
Tape Rating - *** - A decent episode of television to round off what was a really strong set of TV tapings. No episode was blowaway amazing, but with the unenviable task of having to tape five episodes (and the entire build-up to Final Battle 2012) in one night, I feel like ROH did a good job. They managed to get down enough quality material to fill-out five episodes. To leave something as compelling and entertaining as Briscoe/Corino for last shows you how good it was. Honestly, this show was all about selling the ppv – and I think to that end it succeeded. Every segment shilled the ppv, with even a harmless interview with Mike Mondo converted into something to shill Strong/Elgin. As a marketing campaign for the pay-per-view it was great, and I think the ROH Premium Members will get a kick out of Jay vs Corino if they track it down via their membership archive.
ROH on SBG Episodes 61-65 – Top 5 Matches
5) Kevin Steen vs Mike Bennett (*** - Episode 064)
4) Caprice Coleman/Cedric Alexander vs Charlie Haas/Shelton Benjamin (*** - Episode 062)
3) Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly (**** - Episode 061)
2) Jay Briscoe vs Steve Corino (**** - Episode 065)
1) Michael Elgin vs Davey Richards (**** - Episode 063)