ROH on Sinclair – Episode 200 – 22nd July 2015

Firstly, one should congratulate SBG and ROH on making it to the 200-episode mark. I may not always have been the biggest fan of the content, but in this day and age it is still a remarkable achievement. On a personal note, with 200 ROH on SBG reviews clocked up, plus 100 ROH on HDNet reviews, closing in on 400 main ROH event reviews, plus a few miscellaneous compilations and cross-promotional events, I’m starting to feel extremely old! Perhaps I should remember that my longevity as a fan of this company can sometimes make me feel rather jaded to a modern-day product which isn’t always as bad as I make out (but sometimes it really is). They must be doing something right to stick around for this long! Tonight is a special commemorative 200th Episode Special, live from Manhattan, NY and headlined by an intergender 8-man Tag pitting Roderick Strong, the Briscoes and ODB against the House Of Truth. Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino will, of course, call the action.

This episode does feature new footage (i.e. the main event) but will also heavily feature highlights and clips from previous episodes. They don’t exactly go deep into the 199-episode archive for the first of those – highlights of the reDRagon/Addiction Tag Title match from Episode 188. They at least use to promote this week’s iPPV since those two teams, plus The Kingdom and War Machine, meet in a four-way Tag Title Mach there.

Our next clip does go back further – back to 2013 and Episode 97, headlined by the memorable Steel Cage Warfare bout between Team ROH and SCUM. It was a really good match, but in highlight form it looks epic (MILES better than it actually was).

To Episode 181 we go now, for basically the entirety of the 2015 Top Prospect Tournament final between Donovan Dijak and Will Ferrara. Even in the less-than-illustrious history of the Top Prospect Tournament this one was underwhelming. Introducing this as a ‘highlight’ of two hundred episodes of this show is somewhat laughable.

Up next is Episode 171 and snippets from the finals of the 2014 Tag Wars Tournament. I really liked this match, and it’s well worth using your Ringside Membership to check out if you haven’t already. We then flash immediately to Episode 166 for what is, admittedly, one of the best matches in the history of the show in AJ Styles vs Hanson.

INSIDE ROH – Mandy Leon is on shill duty for Death Before Dishonor this weekend. Castle/Cole has been added to the card alongside the other stuff we’ve seen announced. Stokely Hathaway, Adam Page and Jay Lethal provide some brief comments too.

Our final clip-show before the main event actually does dig a little deeper into the archives. We go back to 2012 and Episode 46 for highlights of the Lance Storm vs Michael Bennett main event.

SIDENOTE – How insane is it that this is only the 8th episode of the show that has aired on Destination America, and somehow J. Diesel has been in the main event for TWO of those?

Jay Lethal/Donovan Dijak/J. Diesel/Truth Martini vs Roderick Strong/Jay Briscoe/Mark Briscoe/ODB
There is a lot of history between these eight individuals. Of course Jay Briscoe and Jay Lethal have feuded all year, and that has meant the likes of ODB, Mark Briscoe and Truth Martini have all gotten involved. Last week on TV we saw a team effort from the House Of Truth to keep the TV Title away from Mark and in the aftermath of that he, his brother, ODB and Roddy laid down the challenge for this one. Strong is just days away from facing Lethal in the main event at Death Before Dishonor, where he’ll look to take the World Championship from the very faction he once held it with.

Martini isn’t wearing the most traditional of wrestling attire and keeps his sunglasses on as he steps in to start the match with ODB. All he does is breakdance before tagging out though…to kick-start the inevitable gimmick of Lethal dodging Roderick Strong. He forces Dijak to wrestle Roddy instead, clearly looking to soften him up before Friday. The big man shrugs Mr ROH off when he attempts a backbreaker, but does get chopped into the corner then mauled by the Briscoes. His massive size comes into play though and as we return from commercials Dijak is tossing Mark clean across the ring with a suplex. The House Of Truth isolate Mark, whilst sensibly limiting Diesel’s ring time to just a few kicks. Jay does eventually get a tag…only for Donovan to shunt him into the HOT corner where all four of them can attack. Diesel gets more ring time and as usual his offence looks appalling. His presence tonight is made more tolerable by the New York crowd chanting ‘Baby-tista’ at him at least. Thankfully it’s Lethal that leads the assault on his great rival – and he appears to be taking great pleasure in beating up the former World Champion right in front of his next challenger. Jay hits a DVD on Diesel though…and at last we get to see Strong and Lethal lock horns. They go at INSANE pace, into DEATH BY RODERICK! SICK KICK! Diesel and Dijak break the fall! Lethal blocks End Of Heartache as ODB blind-tags herself…only to be dragged to the mat by Martini. Soon all four members of the House Of Truth surround ODB. SHE TAKES A DRINK AND STARTS FIGHTING ALL OF THEM! Hands down my favourite ODB in ROH moment! DUELLING SOMERSAULT PLANCHAS by the Briscoes! TOPE SUICIDA BY LETHAL! ODB spits whisky into Truth’s face, and gets a popular win over him at 10:42 (shown).

Rating - *** - I think this is a rather generous 3* rating, since the first half of this was dull. However, we should remember that a) this is free TV and b) it is here to promote the iPPV this weekend. It certainly did a decent job promoting Lethal/Strong at Death Before Dishonor, as their exchange during the closing moments here was absolutely electrifying. Once it broke down to all eight tossing spots around (plus the drunk-ODB fighting the entire HOT segment) it became entertaining enough.

Tape Rating - N/A - This was, for the most part, a collection of somewhat random clips, a few commercials for the PPV later in the week, plus a throwaway main event. In fairness to Ring Of Honor, this wasn’t an awful show by any means and I find it perfectly believable that new fans tuning in via Destination America will have watched this, been impressed with the clips they saw, enjoyed a fun main event then instantly gone to ROHWrestling.com to order Death Before Dishonor. If even a hundred new fans across the United States (or globally) do that then this episode would be considered a rip-roaring success. Not worth your time if you are a long-time viewer of the product, but then again, if you're a long-time viewer of ROH then you are in no way the target market for this episode.

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