ROH on Sinclair – Episode 067 – 29th December 2012
This is the final broadcast from Ring Of Honor for the year – and is a special New Year’s edition of the TV show. Within the hour ROH will announce their 2012 Match Of The Year, and I’ll be doing the same with my annual MOTY Top 10. Kevin Kelly is back in the ROH studio…
Before we get to the business of crowning the 2012 MOTY we go to a special 6-man tag from earlier in the year. It was recorded as an exclusive to the ROHWrestling.com Ringside Members, but is now being shown for the first time on TV
Jay Briscoe/Mark Briscoe/Mike Briscoe vs Roderick Strong/Michael Elgin/Truth Martini
If you remember, earlier in the year the Briscoes and the HOT had issues stemming back to their part in the marathon 8-man tag that highlighted the Battle In The Carolinas weekend in late-2011. They were on the same team, and each blamed the other for losing the match and the $10,000 prize money. Here we see Martini make a rare in-ring appearance, and the return of Papa Briscoe for the first time since Final Battle 2010, when he joined his boys in their war with the Kings Of Wrestling.
This isn’t shown in full, and we JIP with Jay flooring Elgin with a jumping heel kick. Papa Briscoe definitely didn’t train as hard for this match, and is fighting in street clothes rather than Briscoe wrestling gear as he did in 2010. Unbreakable turns it round after interference from his teammates, and together the House Of Truth try to isolate Jay. Martini tries to get involved, but rapidly tags back out after taking a solitary kick to the gut. Apparently ‘Cousin Jethro’ Briscoe is also at ringside, and he gets the crowd going as Jay hits the turnbuckle flatliner on Roderick. Truth Martini leaves the arena having been chased by Papa Briscoe and Cousin Jethro…but reappears moments later with Elgin hoisting Jay into the skies with a stalling vertical suplex. He misses a Bronco Buster and allows Jay to get the hot tag to his brother. Mark clears house, and makes the popular tag to Mike…who feeds Strong to Jay for a superkick. CHOKESLAM FROM PAPA BRISCOE! Truth Martini clobbers Mike in the back, then flees for his life before Elgin makes the save. Mark wipes out Unbreakable with a somersault plancha! Martini tries to throw powder in Mike’s face, only for Papa to launch into his instead. PAPA BRISCOE STUNNER! He pins Truth at 07:07 (shown)
Rating - ** - Brief, inoffensive and, as with the Final Battle 2010 match he was in, super-fun whenever Papa Briscoe got involved. Considering this was given away for free to the live crowd and Ringside Members there’s really not much to complain about. I laughed several times and popped for the finish.
After the break Kevin Kelly talks about some of the injuries suffered by ROH stars this year – particularly the serious ones suffered by Tommaso Ciampa and Mike Mondo. That leads us to clips from Steen/Mondo for the World Title from back in July.
After talking about the chaos caused by Kevin Steen and SCUM, we move to talking about another guy who has started causing real problems for Ring Of Honor – Jay Lethal. He has been a destructive force in ROH since Killer Instinct, and is currently banned from the World Title picture despite winning the 2012 Survival Of The Fittest tournament.
Kevin Kelly formally announces that ROH’s official MOTY for 2012 was the Showdown In The Sun Day 2 main event – which saw Davey Richards defend the World Title against Michael Elgin. They show around 75% of it, which is a real treat to any TV viewers who might not have seen it.
NEXT WEEK – Final Battle Road Rage…………………yippee
Tape Rating - N/A - As with last week, this was a fun little episode. Fun, insightful and impressive little video features, a fresh match for the TV audience and the official confirmation of the Richards/Elgin match as ROH’s MOTY (although it wasn’t mine). To give credit where it’s due, whilst I really don’t enjoy his commentary work, one area where Kevin Kelly is particularly impressive is this format of TV show. His experience with the WWF (particularly on their low-end broadcasts and highlight shows) make him genuinely very effective at fronting this kind of episode.
2012 Top 10 Matches
10) Davey Richards vs Jay Lethal (**** - Homecoming 2012)
9) Kevin Steen vs El Generico (****1/2 – Showdown In The Sun: Day 1)
8) Jay Lethal vs Davey Richards (****1/2 – Glory By Honor 11)
7) Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly (****1/2 – Best In The World 2012)
6) Eddie Edwards/Adam Cole vs Davey Richards/Kyle O’Reilly (****1/2 – 10th Anniversary Show)
5) Kevin Steen vs El Generico (****1/2 – Final Battle 2012)
4) Davey Richards vs Kevin Steen (****1/2 – Border Wars)
3) Kevin Steen vs Davey Richards (****1/2 – Best In The World 2012)
2) Davey Richards vs Michael Elgin (****1/2 – Showdown In The Sun: Day 2)
1) Kevin Steen vs Michael Elgin (****1/2 – Glory By Honor 11)
There are some great matches in this Top 10 list – but in many ways they show just how stagnant Ring Of Honor was in 2012. Davey Richards and/or Kevin Steen feature in all but one match in the ten. A lot of ROH’s problems have been stale, repetitive house shows and predictable, stale or entirely skippable midcards…and the fact that nobody other than those two has really solidified themselves at the top of the card is indicative of that. There are signs of upwards mobility (Cole and O’Reilly have had good years, Michael Elgin has proven himself to be a wrestler of immense quality when given the opportunity to prove it, and Jay Lethal has been a consistent in-ring performer who ends the year with great momentum thanks to the ‘killer instinct’ angle), but ultimately the matches listed above stand more as rare positive moments in a fairly mediocre year rather than the crowning moments in a glorious twelve months.
But, lets not underestimate the tremendous year that both Steen and Davey have had. Both have their critics. Davey is a former internet darling who has had to endure a real backlash over the last 18 months. Some of the criticisms of his actions and attitude may be just, but in the ring he gets a lot of hugely unfair comments and remarks made. With the roster as thin as it’s ever been, Davey is the reliable, consistent and world-class workhorse that ROH badly need. After losing the World Title at Border Wars, he now steps into the Bryan Danielson role for the promotion. He’s the guy who they don’t necessarily need to push, or give angles to. But he’s the guy you wheel out in a high profile match when you want to ‘make’ a ppv, or sell a DVD, or deliver a kick-ass TV episode with one top quality main event level performance. He’s the man they will rely on to make credible main eventers out of Elgin, O’Reilly, Cole, Ciampa (when he’s back) etc. He was very critical of the ROH creative decision to split the American Wolves…and it appears that he’ll get his chance to team with Eddie Edwards again in 2013. Whether that will be enough to satisfy him, or if he’ll start seeking more opportunities to scale back his ROH bookings to get his regular Japanese bookings back, chase a WWE/TNA deal or even retire from the sport as he’s threatened to do before…his career is definitely a crossroads as we end the year.
And what more can you say about Steen? He’s risen above criticism his entire career. This year he’s risen above bad booking, a head booker who has gone on record as saying he isn’t a fan of his, all the criticisms about his size/weight/ring skills and more to become the recognised and undisputed figure-head, standard-bearer and franchise player for the #3 promotion in North America. His gripping and utterly tremendous heavyweight clash with Michael Elgin at Glory By Honor 11 was comfortably my 2012 MOTY. That’s not a knock on Richards/Elgin, but to me that match will stand the test of time as a true Ring Of Honor classic. The size of the athletes on this roster means you really don’t often get to see two big bulls slugging it out for the World Championship, and watching those two lock horns for an epic half hour of action was truly the stand-out contest of 2012 for me. But Steen’s versatility is what has made him such a valuable centrepiece for Ring Of Honor. He has really entertaining TV length matches (his World Title defences against the likes of Mondo, Bennett and Titus for instance), can produce outstanding mat-based, technical classics like his Border Wars win over Davey…and can always be relied upon to produce incredible hardcore wars like his clashes with El Generico, Eddie Kingston in the summer or Jimmy Jacobs at the 10th Anniversary. What ROH do with him in 2013 is going to be extremely interesting. The backlash against Davey Richards shows just how carefully you have to manage ‘indie superstar’ wrestlers. Having held the title since May and having been forced to defend the belt in every singles match he’s had for months, he’s basically ran through the entire roster now. He remains extremely popular, and you have to wonder how long Delirious can hold off a full-fledged babyface turn (and whether he takes Corino and Jacobs with him). Other than a rematch with Jay Lethal, what more does he have to achieve with the World Championship – and what has been done to elevate potential successors to him as World Champion?
As I said at the top of this wrap-up. It’s been a year of stagnation and frustration for Ring Of Honor. They made noises and gestures to suggest that they were getting their house in order towards the end of the year. Killer Instinct, Glory By Honor, Final Battle and the Pittsburgh TV tapings certainly represent a step in the right direction. Do Ring Of Honor want to get back to being the premier independent promotion? Or do they want to be mainstream? As much as they would like to, 2012 shows that they can’t do both…and the confused, bland, middle-of-the-road, dated stuff they’ve been churning out through large parts of the year simply weren’t good enough. Either they promote themselves as a genuine alternative to WWE and TNA with a product that differentiates itself accordingly, or they really tighten up on the creative and production aspects of their product and get a lot better at producing must-see, compelling and logical story-telling on a weekly basis via their TV show.
There’s also the need to create new stars. I don’t just mean main eventers…I mean they need to sort out the roster. We need new, exciting young talent asap. Promising youngsters like ACH, Adam Page, 3.0, Matt Taven and more have briefly appeared, then vanished again. Meanwhile rival promotion DGUSA/Evolve have been pulling out and signing American talents like Ricochet, Rich Swann, AR Fox, Sami Callihan, Johnny Gargano, Uhaa Nation and more for years. ROH aren’t going to win viewers and aren’t presenting a real alternative with Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin, Rhino, Matt Hardy and the Headbangers running around on their TV show. Those guys didn’t draw in WWE or TNA, hence they aren’t there anymore. Outside of Haas (who is genuinely hated) and Rhino (who has shown an ability to hang in the ring with ROH’s core roster) I’d argue that none of those guys should be on the roster, don’t contribute anything significant and are taking up big wages that could be spent elsewhere. Where is Low Ki? Why were the Young Bucks so badly treated? Why is the money being thrown at ex-WWE guys not being used to tempt disillusioned, talented TNA guys back to the indies…or some of Gabe’s higher profile talents to cross the line in the sand?
Like I said, ROH made lots of noise about changing things up – and the signs are promising. The ‘Honor Lives’ slogan was banded around, Jim Cornette was supposedly sidelined and the product clearly improved. BUT, ultimately, not a lot has changed thus far. A few good shows don’t necessarily indicate a full-scale ROH renaissance. Reuniting the American Wolves or hiring Bobby Fish doesn’t dust the creative and talent issues under the rug. I believe 2013 will be one of the most critical years in ROH history. Sinclair aren’t going to bankroll a stagnant and uninspired product forever. Supposedly the numbers for the TV show are good, and ippv buys have been fairly steady despite ROH’s well-documented problems in that area. The addition of a VOD option for all ROH shows early in 2013 was also a critical and long-overdue improvement. If ROH don’t achieve real, tangible growth in 2013, and/or if they don’t start regaining some of that core ‘hardcore’ independent fanbase they’ve lost over the last 18 months of Sinclair ownership thus far it’s hard to see where Ring Of Honor can go.