ROH on Sinclair – Episode 087 – 18th May 2013
Things are starting to take shape for ROH’s summer season. We have Jay Briscoe finding his feet as World Champion, Kevin Steen a one man army, Ring Of Honor and SCUM waging war to the death, Matt Hardy and Steve Corino chasing total annihilation of the company, the American Wolves leading the chasing pack of tag teams targeting reDRagon and the Tag Titles, Matt Taven and the House Of Truth goofing off on the undercard with the TV Title in their possession, Adam Cole’s slow heelish descent, the mystery of when Michael Elgin will mount his challenge to the heavyweight title etc. After a couple of weeks of house shows, we move on with post-Border Wars TV. The next ppv is Best In The World 2013, which is set for late June, so ROH has a solid four week block of television to prepare for it. Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino (as the official colour commentator of the SBG show for the first time) call the action from Toronto, ONT.
Steve Corino comes straight to the ring, proudly announcing himself as the new colour commentator as a result of SCUM’s win at Border Wars. Jay Lethal limps out too, calling it a mistake to take him out of that tag match, and a bigger a mistake to replace him with Kevin Steen. Apparently Nigel McGuinness has agreed to his demands to let him wrestle tonight…so we’re underway immediately
Jay Lethal vs Jimmy Jacobs
As we just saw, Lethal picked up a leg injury in the ROH vs SCUM tag at Border Wars and had to be carried out of the arena. That contributed to ROH’s eventual defeat, and deprived Jay of his chance to get some retribution on his enemies in Corino’s group. Tonight he looks to make it right…
Jacobs starts bashing Lethal’s leg against the apron from the get-go, immediately worsening his already pronounced limp. He then shunts him legs-first into the guardrails to inflict further punishment. Jay tries to defend himself with chops and modifies one of his standard spots by removing the hiptoss and hitting the Zombie Princess with a simple sliding dropkick instead. It’s a stalling tactic only though, and Jimmy is soon back to assaulting the bad wheel. Lethal lands a DDT but his leg buckles under him as he lines up the Lethal Injection. Jacobs counters it by applying a horse collar in the ropes and we go to commercials with the ROH athlete in serious trouble. Knee-DT landed for 2 as we come back. Lethal still has his wits about him and counters a Figure 4 attempt into a small package for a nearfall in return. More kicks are aimed at the knee by Jacobs…with such devastating impact that Lethal literally collapses as he tries to land a superkick. LETHAL COMBINATION! On the good leg to give him credit! His leg gives way again as he tries the Lethal Injection, and he bends over into the CONTRA CODE! Huge win for Jacobs and SCUM at 08:53 (shown)
Rating - *** - It’s so rare that Jimmy gets to win, I actually almost dropped by timer I was so shocked. Typical of the strong 2013 from both men, this was a decent match. They didn’t work too many high spots and didn’t burn out the crowd for a long taping…they just told a simple, straight-forward and old fashioned story which everyone could understand and relate to. Lethal’s selling was decent, and Jimmy’s offensive work was suitably heelish without going so far as to become villainous in a pantomime fashion.
Nigel McGuinness comes out to run down the top challengers to Jay Briscoe and the World Title. Michael Elgin is still declining to challenge as he wants to redeem his loss to Karl Anderson and get rid of SCUM. The American Wolves both have shots in June…but before June 22nd and Best In The World 2013. Jay himself comes out, happily accepting challengers and confident of beating them all. Mark Briscoe is here too…apparently unhappy with Jay’s confidence/cockiness. Out of that we have a main event for the next ippv set it seems – although Nigel stops short of actually booking it as he wants time to think.
SIDENOTE – How forced was that? Were ROH really that desperate to book Briscoe vs Briscoe? Why not at least remotely build to it by having Jay become increasingly cocky after a few defences. Literally his ‘arrogance’ since winning the belt was this one promo. And they haven’t slow-burnt any jealousy between the brothers. They could have teamed together and lost, or have Jay steal the glory and the wins. Or have Jay distracted as he’s more focused on his World Title. They could have at least done any of these things in the Dragon’s Reign main event when they challenged reDRagon. Instead this segment came out of nowhere, felt entirely forced, was appallingly acted and other than the functionality of setting up our ppv main event, was really poor.
Rhett Titus/Cliff Compton vs Caprice Coleman/Cedric Alexander
More ROH vs SCUM action here, this time with Titus and Compton joining forces once again to face the C&C WrestleFactory – who have been fighting on the front line for Ring Of Honor without ever really getting the same credit for it as guys like Whitmer, Elgin or Lethal.
SCUM are tripped out of the ring as they try to jump C&C, with Coleman landing the ringpost 619 then holding the ropes down for Alexander’s somersault plancha. Hart Attack leg lariat gets 2 on Rhett, and the ROH team start to isolate the former Tag Champion from there. Compton sneaks into the ring to throw Caprice shoulder-first into the ringpost. He came into the match with a taped up shoulder, and referees immediately come to the ring to carry him out. Cliff follows it with a falcon arrow on Cedric, with the match now effectively a handicap match. With Alexander beaten down, SCUM head up the aisle and drag the injured Coleman back to the ring to attack his bad arm again. Somehow Cedric hooks Compton up for a full nelson facebuster…then looks to his corner to see a one-armed Caprice Coleman climbing purposefully onto the apron. He takes the tag, instantly laying out Cliff with the spinning axe kick and following it with a swinging neckbreaker on Titus for 2. Alexander helps out with a springboard elbow drop which gets another nearfall…before being smashed into the rails by Cliff. He snaps Caprice’s shoulder on the ropes…and he falls into the Rhett-ribution DDT for the win at 09:16
Rating - ** - This was a perfectly solid match, although I’d rather have seen this one open the show and allowed Lethal/Jacobs to get an uninterrupted nine minutes of TV time. Caprice and Cedric were great again, with Coleman drawing genuine sympathy for the arm injury and Alexander providing the excitement as his explosive sidekick. And after criticising him during my Relentless review, I thought Compton was the glue that held this match together. You’d be a little underwhelmed if this was on a show you’d paid to see, but it’s decent for free TV.
Adam Cole vs Kevin Steen
This was scheduled to be the World Championship main event for Border Wars when Steen was still champion, but the decision was made after his defeat to give the Toronto fans this match the next night at the TV tapings instead. As it happens we see both men entering extremely frustrated. Cole failed to take the ROH Title from Jay Briscoe at the ppv, and blames the unwanted intervention of Match Maker Nigel McGuinness for that. He’ll want to take that anger out, and re-establish his World Championship credentials with a win over the last man to hold it before Jay. Mr Wrestling also had a night to forget at Border Wars, as he invaded the arena, tried to help ROH in their tag match with SCUM after Lethal’s injury…and wound up losing to hand SCUM (most likely Matt Hardy) a title shot and get Corino his new commentary job.
Steen is visibly distracted by Corino sitting ringside for his match. It’s Cole who throws the first punch, getting in some fierce shots at Mr Wrestling…which the Canadian is only too happy to return. Pescado missed by Adam. Steen laughs at his misfortune then crumples him with the APRON BOMB! He hauls Cole round the ring…ANOTHER APRON BOMB! AND A THIRD! But again he gets preoccupied shouting at the King Of Old School…and it gives Cole enough time to not only recover, but to mount an attack on Steen’s knee (an age-old weakness of his). He can’t lock in the Figure 4 yet…so instead he waits for Kevin to limp to the ropes then leaps for a jumping enzi right to the face. The Canadian fans are always vocally behind Steen, so the ferocity of Cole’s attack on the leg is drawing him some real heel heat. They like it a lot more as Kevin hits a lariat out of the corner for 2. Cannonball senton COUNTERED WITH A NECK DROP GERMAN! Shining Wizard scores a nearfall for Cole. Mr Wrestling nails the pumphandle cradlebreaker…and rolls around on the canvas clutching his own leg afterwards. He can’t lift Adam for the Package Piledriver…so Cole tries to counter it to the Figure 4. SHARPSHOOTER ON STEEN! Oh you better believe that gets heat! Corino calls for a Montreal Screwjob from Todd Sinclair on commentary! Steen fights out into the F-5! Cliff Compton tries to distract Steen, but fails and has to watch Steen put Cole in the Sharpshooter. JIMMY JACOBS $10 PUNCHES STEEN! FLORIDA KEY! Cole gets the victory at 10:30 (shown).
Rating - *** - These guys have had great matches with each other in quite a few promotions, and always produce decent TV or undercard clashes for ROH, so it’s no surprise that this one was good too. I am sad they decided to end Steen’s run at Supercard Of Honor so we didn’t get the chance to see these guys tear the house down in a ppv main event – although if ROH can keep both under contract and/or committed to future dates that could still happen. Kevin Kelly called this show a ‘night of injuries’ and this one certainly followed a theme of workers attacking pre-existing injuries during matches. I enjoyed Cole’s limb work the best of any tonight, as he was just subtle and intelligent enough with it to really raise the ire of the home fans – without actually having to turn heel mid-match. The Sharpshooter spot was sheer genius, and the undoubted highlight for me. As I said at Border Wars, I don’t really like seeing Steen jobbed out after such a dominant run as champion. I’d argue that even without the belt he’s easily ROH’s biggest draw, so they can’t keep throwing him under every bus they can find – even if it is the SCUM angle which they’ve invested a lot in, or Adam Cole who has such a bright future.
NEXT WEEK – Roderick Strong vs Taiji Ishimori
Tape Rating - *** - I loathed the Briscoe/Briscoe segment, but thankfully the rest of the show was a pretty solid wrestling episode. No match particularly blew me away, but I enjoy focused limb-work and story-telling, and all three matches had that in abundance. Steen and Cole working watered down versions of some of their brilliant interactions in companies like PWG on television is still more fun than what the big companies churn out at times.