ROH on Sinclair – Episode 145 – 28th June 2014
This episode goes out less than a week after crowning Michael Elgin the new World Champion at Best In The World 2014. With new content still in the editing room, ROH are wasting no time confirming the title change on television – and tonight’s broadcast is a special look at the career of the new Ring Of Honor Champion. Larry Mercer (no Mandy this week sadly) is your host.
Elgin talks about being a wrestling fan as a kid, and his early experiences in wrestling school – where he met his trainer-turned-friend Tyson Dux. We are shown clips of the match between the two of them at Raising The Bar Night 2.
Jimmy Jacobs talks about Elgin driving endless hours to show up at ROH shows he wasn’t even booked on – just in case they needed an extra talent. That was how he wound up getting booked on shows like Battle Of St Paul and Tag Wars 2008. Truth Martini pops in to say that Elgin impressed when he saw him at ROH Dojo training camps…whilst Elgin credits both Truth and Roderick Strong for his early success as part of the House Of Truth.
Kevin Kelly heads the list of people who praise the Elgin/Davey match at Showdown In The Sun. My favourite comment comes from Jimmy – who admits he didn’t watch and was trying to sleep backstage, but couldn’t because the crowd were too loud. Everyone singles out that match as the turning point in his career.
Weirdly the timeline seems to get screwed now as we go from talking about Showdown In The Sun 2012 to Kevin Kelly praising the 2011 Survival Of The Fittest finals between Elgin and Kyle O’Reilly. This is either pretty poor editing, or an outright oversight with people getting their dates confused. Either way, the SOTF 2011 final was one of my favourites so I’m glad they include clips of it.
The dynamic between Elgin and Truth Martini during his early ROH career is played up. For some reason they pick the brutally average match between Elgin and Rhino to emphasise it. Presumably this was just an excuse to put Rhino on TV again, and make his continued presence in the ‘ROH on SBG’ opening credits relevant even though he hasn’t been booked in months.
Kevin Kelly, Jimmy Jacobs and Tyson Dux end the show backing Elgin to become one of the best ever in ROH.
SIDENOTE – In my opinion he definitely has the in-ring skills to become one of ROH’s all-time greats. But right now he simply doesn’t have a character that resonates with fans. If he was in ROH in 2005/6, with the likes of Punk, Danielson, Joe, Homicide, Gibson, AJ, Aries, The Embassy etc he would barely be scratching the main event scene. That’s not because he can’t cut it in the ring, it’s because fans still don’t identify with him, or care about what he’s doing. Even guys like Joe and Bryan, who weren’t the best with promos, found a style of interview and an in-ring character which made fans LOVE them. We may be more mainstream nowadays, but to be a serious superstar in this company you still need the die hard fans to love you as ‘THEIR GUY’. They want to see a guy they route for and praisee to the stars – so that when they go to WWE and become a star (like Punk, like Danielson, like Tyler, like Claudio) they can say ‘I told you so’. Elgin has never had that relationship with ROH crowds – and until he does, he will never be amongst the elite, all-time great performers in this company. That’s not me criticising him, as I enjoy his work. It’s just my suggestion on what he needs to improve if he wants to be a successful World Champion, and if he wants to be ranked alongside Joe, Punk, Nigel or Dragon
Tape Rating - N/A - I had issues with the match selection (Elgin/Rhino – really?) and thought it was weird they talked about Survival Of The Fittest 2011 after Showdown In The Sun, but on the whole this was a pretty engaging look at Elgin’s career thus far. Getting guys like Jacobs and Martini talking out of character was a huge positive, with Jimmy providing some particularly interesting insight.