ROH on Sinclair – Episode 175 – 24th January 2015
We are almost at the end of January, and hopefully this is the episode of ROH on SBG that finally ignites the touchpaper under the new year. Within the hour we’ll see Alberto El Patron make his in-ring debut against another world-travelled veteran of the business in Christopher Daniels, and we’ll also see The Kingdom and the Briscoes look to end their feud once and for all. Lets get back to Nashville, TN with Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino.
NEW CREDITS! NEW CREDITS! It’s been more than a year (since the existing title sequence became outdated), but they finally did it. And they’re good too! The same familiar music, but Kevin Kelly’s irritating screeching has been removed and the clips reflect both a dynamic product and the current ROH roster.
The Briscoes open the show by suggesting they have something up their metaphorical sleeves to deal with Maria Kanellis tonight.
Michael Bennett/Matt Taven vs Jay Briscoe/Mark Briscoe
Last week we saw Jay successfully defend the World Title against Matt Taven, but once again he failed to get the ‘Title Of Love’ back…and once again found himself the victim to the superior numbers of The Kingdom. Mark duly laid down a challenge so now once again Bennett and Taven find themselves having to go toe-to-toe with the most successful tag team in ROH history.
I didn’t catch an opening bell, as the Briscoes sprint to the ring straight into a fight. Mark lands the Cactus Elbow early before chairs start to fly and bodies start crashing into guardrails. In fact, by the time we get to the first ad break of the show the match still hasn’t officially started. The bell rings as we come back, with the Briscoes on top and looking to isolate Taven. Bennett saves his partner from the Doomsday Device and hits Mark with the Spear on the apron. There’s a nice touch as Jay counters the swinging neckbreaker that Taven hit during their title match last week…but his only reward for that is getting smacked in the head by Bennett and the Title Of Love. That’s an obvious DQ at 01:20.
Rating - N/A - More of an angle than a match and although I am very ready for this feud to be over, ROH do now seem to be making serious steps towards advancing and resolving it. To that end, this was an effective piece of television and felt like a much more unpredictable, wild and exciting way to start the show than the usual 5-9 minute underwhelming wrestling match.
Maria wants to give Jay a solo Con-Chair-To…but ODB runs in to make the save. She is what the Briscoes had up their sleeve to nullify Maria, and she gets a surprisingly vociferous pop as she rescues the World Champion with chair shots to Bennett and Taven. Maria runs away looking terrified.
Jimmy Jacobs talks about wanting to use The Decade to cultivate suitable talent for the ‘next decade’. As such they are scouting the Top Prospect Tournament looking for a new young boy.
Beer City Bruiser vs Mikey Webb
BCB doesn’t look young, nor does he look like a wrestler in any traditional sense of the word. He’s a big, tubby, balding, toothless guy drinking beer and, whilst I’m sure his gimmick may well provide some laughs, there is some genuine talent that ROH could be recruiting right now rather than wasting air time on this guy. Webb looks pretty generic…but at least resembles what one might recognise as a wrestler.
Kevin Kelly compares Bruiser to Vader. He also points out that he has a knee brace…which I assume is another shill for the Health Alert Hotline. Webb tries to suplex him, I guess because his gimmick is ‘idiot’. Generic dropkicks of doom next, followed by the world’s worst springboard rana which BCB smirks as he sells. ELBOW SMASH awesomely blocks an even more generic tope. FATTY CANNONBALL BY BEER CITY! He’s so fat he is literally spilling out of his trunks! Fisherman buster gets 2 when Mikey finally drags his flattened ass back in. Generic axehandles from Generic Mikey, but he can’t get the Bruiser off his feet. He finally hits the idiotic suplex of doom…for 2. Webb is so f*cking ordinary he can’t even come up with his own finisher – instead rattling off a Shiranui. For a fearful second I worry that Webb is going to win, but thankfully Beer kicks out and polishes him off with the Two Day Hangover (Rikishi Driver) at 07:27
Rating - DUD - I don’t want to say that this sucked, but Ring Of Honor should be above stuff like this. The whole match felt like something ripped straight out of the Murphy Rec days in fact. Beer City Bruiser is perfectly fine at what he does. He’s a big, fat, marginally agile veteran…and that in itself was somewhat entertaining. But ROH already has a roster full of big agile guys now (Hanson, Rowe, Elgin, Moose etc), and all of them have far more upside than a toothless old guy who can throw some strikes and do a sloppy somersault. Webb, meanwhile, was a brutal combination of generic and utterly useless. This was a damning indictment of the complete lack of quality in the 2015 TPT field.
Another KRD promo airs. A lot of people jumped all over this and criticised it straight away. Believe me, I can be as negative as anyone about the current ROH product at times, but I don’t get why people were already dumping on this. It’s not the most creative thing to do, it’s proximity to SCUM, Outlaw Inc. and other ‘down with ROH’ style factions isn’t ideal and the video packages themselves are sort of strange…but at least give it a chance.
Christopher Daniels vs Alberto El Patron
I came across a number of interviews which revealed that Daniels seemed genuinely humbled at being chosen to be Alberto’s first opponent in an ROH ring. It makes sense on a number of levels putting these two together though. They are both veterans who have been around this business for a long time, they’ve both been a part of major promotions in several countries…and the fact that Daniels has a wealth of experience competing across the globe in a television environment makes him the ideal candidate to face a guy who, lets face it, hasn’t spent a whole lot of time working the American indy scene. Alberto was a major star in Mexico, a top guy in the WWE and supposedly capable of holding his own in an MMA environment too – but the ROH style is something very different to all of those. Putting him in with a jack-of-all-trades like Daniels definitely helps bridge the gap and ease him into Ring Of Honor competition.
Daniels has to work seriously hard in the early going. As skilled as he is, El Patron has a very similar skillset, plus superior size and a significant strength advantage. Alberto ejects the Fallen Angel from the ring then makes the mistake of trying to move with the speed of his opponent. Daniels easily sidesteps an attempted dive, shunts him into the guardrails then takes flight himself with an Arabian press to the floor. AEP responds by stepping up the ropes into an enziguri…and does his best to MURDER Daniels against the guardrails! Shortarm scissors applied as Alberto moves towards targeting the arm for the first time. Jay Lethal arrives and joins commentary as Alberto locks in the HANGING ARMBAR! Once again ‘The Boss’ makes the error of trying to fly like Daniels, getting caught and superplexed off the top rope. Daniels presses the accelerator pedal and has the Mexican legend visibly sucking wind. His arm appears too weak to execute Angel’s Wings though, and El Patron capitalises to tilta-whirl him into a backbreaker. KOJI CLUTCH! Daniels catches Alberto rushing in…but doesn’t have enough to force the win before AEP uses his height to reach the ropes. Armbar DDT nailed, into a basement superkick. Daniels counters the Cross Armbreaker into a northern lights…although it’s becoming noticeable how much he is favouring his arm. INVERTED SUPLEX BY ALBERTO! Daniels fights back, but MISSES the BME! Climbing Enziguri! ARMBREAKER! CROSS ARMBREAKER! DANIELS TAPS! El Patron earns a debut victory at 13:06 (shown).
Rating - **** - An extremely solid in-ring debut for Alberto and a hell of match to put out for free. This wasn’t structured or given sufficient time to be an MOTYC or Alberto’s ‘defining’ Ring Of Honor performance, but they were extremely clever about how they used their time and put together a sound, grounded and technically very good back and forth match which emphasised the strengths of both before El Patron invariably went over. Of course he worked the arm, that’s his gimmick, but I enjoyed the subtlety with which he went about it. Daniels’ progressive selling of the injury was masterful too. If you enjoy neat little touches which make a wrestling match believable (as opposed to a big fat guy taking an obviously fake bump for a little spot merchant like we saw in Bruiser/Webb) then this match is for you. This was head and shoulders above anything else at this taping
Jay Lethal hops into the ring running his mouth at Alberto…who gives him an almighty slap. Of course, J. Diesel and Truth Martini aren’t far behind but before they can inflict too much damage The Addiction chase them off.
NEXT WEEK – Jay Lethal has to defend his TV Title against Matt Sydal and ACH
Tape Rating - *** - The Daniels/Alberto match easily makes this the pick of the Winter Warriors Nashville episodes. Although I’m not a big fan of hers, ODB’s debut adds a fun new twist to the ongoing Briscoe/Kingdom feud and their brawl to open the show felt pretty energetic too. ROH should be embarrassed about putting that Bruiser/Webb match on television, but if you can find it within you to skip straight over that segment this was a solid show.