ROH on Sinclair – Episode 168 – 6th December 2014
In most markets this episode would expect to premiere the night before Final Battle. I was under the impression that, given they taped in Baltimore on November 22nd they’d have thought about using this TV slot for one last hot episode of the show to build storylines and amp up the tension ahead of the big pay-per-view. Instead they’ve opted to do the same thing they did for Best In The World, which is to use their last TV slot before the big event as an elongated info-mercial. Playing like an episode of Afterburn or Bottom Line, it features two hosts in Delirious’ merch cave narrating a bunch of video packages and highlight reels. Just as a pointer to Ring Of Honor, WWE doesn’t use the Raw before pay-per-views to do this, even when ppv’s weren’t on the WWE Network and actually meant something. Without suggesting that they copy everything Vince’s company does – given that he was far more successful for a LOT longer running ppv you’d think he might know a thing or two. Having vented my spleen, lets join the super-enthusiastic Larry Mercer and the super-hot Mandy Leon in their small cupboard for the show…
SIDENOTE – Larry Legend used to be a pretty cool ring announcer, carrying his iPad and providing a rather quirky and offbeat take on the role. He always seemed like he wanted to showcase his own personality in the job rather than do what everyone else does – which is copy Howard Finkel. Somewhere over the last two years ROH have morphed him into a painfully nerdy minor league broadcaster. He’s cringingly unwatchable almost from the opening of the show and is so painfully UN-cool he makes Kevin Kelly seem like Jay-Z.
And on that note, why does Mandy Leon present these things, not Scarlett Bordeaux? I understand Scarlett lives in the Midwest so isn’t as cheap or geographically accessible as Mandy. But Mandy Leon isn’t really even in Ring Of Honor. She’s never on TV. She’s rarely at live events. She’s not a character in the show. Having her host these things just comes off as pathetically cheap and minor league. Either pay for Scarlett to come to the studio, or invest in Mandy, pay her a wage, get her touring with the crew and into the company with a role of some sort. If they don’t think she’s ready to be part of the touring roster, then she shouldn’t on TV as basically a low-cost pair of tits. It’s classless…
The first match highlighted is the Strong/Page match. Rather worryingly, despite having one of the lengthiest and most in-depth back-stories of anything on the Final Battle card the highlight package is basically a re-run of the Strong vs Page/Whitmer shenanigans from the tapings we’ve just seen in Florida and nothing else.
Thankfully the work done on the Ciampa/Elgin match is much better. Tommaso Ciampa’s promo that holds the whole package together is absolutely outstanding, with Elgin’s stroppy teenager gimmick from the Florida tapings and Survival Of The Fittest weekend already marginalised. We end with a lengthy re-run of the Elgin/Ciampa World Title Match from Death Before Dishonor 12 Night 2.
Things threaten to get interesting for a while as highlights of the reDRagon vs Time Splitters IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title change in New Japan are shown. NJPW (a promotion which actually is booked rather well) quite literally hands Delirious a gift by putting the Jr. tag straps on reDRagon – adding significant extra spice to their clash over the ROH Tag Titles at Final Battle.
Despite being a major part of ROH all year, the demise of RD Evans’ ‘New Streak’ is just casually dropped into a conversation between Larry and Mandy. In fact, barely any of the super-dramatic Lethal/RD TV Title Match is shown at all. We skip right to ‘SBG’s pet project’ Moose’s intervention, because it’s cool to have an ex-NFL player on the show.
Obviously the Cole/Briscoe feud gets plenty of air-time at the end of the show. That’s fair since it’s the Final Battle main event. It’s also inevitable since it’s the only feud Delirious has invested any real time in developing since the Michael Elgin experiment turned extremely sour. The episode ends with highlights of the Survival Of The Fittest finals…which I actually don’t hate since that made Cole look great and also showcases Hanson (who has been booked so well that after going to the SOTF finals, and an MOTYC against AJ Styles…barely makes it onto the Final Battle card in a throw-away multi-man bout). Adam Cole himself crashes the end of the broadcast to call himself the ‘Franchise Player’ in Ring Of Honor. He totally is by the way…
Tape Rating - DUD DUD DUD DUD DUD DUD - This sucked. Even viewed exclusively as a commercial for Final Battle (and not as an episode of the TV show) it was abysmal. Larry and Mandy’s forced, overly-scripted and completely wooden delivery was poor. There were moments of awkward silence and instances of stumbling over words which were completely inexcusable for a canned show. The vast majority of the ‘highlights’ came from the last set of tapings which just served to place even more emphasis on the crippling lack of long-term booking and storylines that has beset ROH all year. Sinclair sit on a huge pot of cash and with talent like Styles, Daniels, Kazarian, Sydal, Cole, the Briscoes and the Bucks booked regularly (plus the likes of Joe and Alberto on the horizon) it’s clear that they are willing to give Ring Of Honor a pretty healthy budget. But they really need a total re-think on how their product is booked and presented. The hard working talent has consistently delivered a decent in-ring product throughout 2014, and that’s pretty much the only thing keeping this company going right now. As far as creative goes the promotion is absolutely in the dirt. The product is so un-cool, so under-baked and so lacking in any sort of serious long-term buzz that it’s quite sad to see what this once state-of-the-art independent wrestling promotion has been reduced to. Watching low-budget, low-talent presenters bumble and stumble through an hour of poorly produced highlights from the taping we JUST FINISHED watching, to beg for ppv buys, because the company has been booked so poorly that even a long-time fan like myself struggles to see why he should care about half of the card for their biggest show of the year, was a pretty depressing experience. I’ve no doubt that, as usual, the wrestlers themselves will save the show by delivering inside the ring. But until this company gets serious about it’s creative team, gets a better booker and stops pulling seriously minor-league stunts like this show they’ll remain a perpetually mediocre shadow of the promotion they could be. I could feel myself getting more and more angry as this episode progressed, and I really do struggle to see how some fans can even remotely consider ranking 2014 alongside the likes of 2010, 2005 or 2006 as one of the best years in the history of the company…