ROH on Sinclair – Episode 201 – 29th July 2015
Where was I when I last dropped in on 2015 Ring Of Honor? Jay Lethal had become the ‘Undisputed’ Champion by dethroning Jay Briscoe at Best In The World, then advanced to Death Before Dishonor 13 to put on sixty minute classic against Roderick Strong. ROH in the Sinclair Era celebrated their 200th episode (fittingly with an underwhelming clip show), and we actually rocked through a couple of decent house shows in Hopkins and Vegas too. We have one more week of content taped at the post-BITW television tapings, so this footage is now over a month (and the follow-up PPV to Best In The World) out of date which isn’t ideal. Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino are at ringside in Manhattan, NY.
Michael Bennett/Matt Taven vs Corey Hollis/Jonathan Gresham
Neither Hollis nor Gresham are strangers to Ring Of Honor television, and have appeared to stare at the lights for core ROH talent multiple times. Gresham was brought in as an enhancement guy as far back as the HDNet era. Annoyingly, they are both actually quite good – especially Jon Gresham – and probably deserve more of an opportunity. Their opponents tonight are a Kingdom team working their second match of the tapings, and still trying to deal with the dissension in the ranks between themselves and the wayward Adam Cole.
The Kingdom hit tandem superkicks to start the match…but they shook hands first so technically it was honourable! Bennett hits the Spear on the apron, as Taven starts choking Gresham on the outside with electrical cable. ‘I think you’re wrong a lot’ – Maria Kanellis speaking the absolute truth to Kevin Kelly. Gresham takes a lot of punishment, but is so quick that neither of his opponents can keep him down. They hit a superkick/Spear combo on Hollis instead for 2. SNAP GERMAN from Gresham to Bennett! Only to walk into Matt’s springboard enziguri spot! Hail Mary finishes Corey at 04:24
Rating - ** - I’ve gone extremely generous on my rating as this was a total squash, but I really wanted to reward what was a spirited and likeable little performance by both Gresham and Hollis. I’ve said numerous times over the years that Jon Gresham is an outstanding worker, but his lack of height (he is tiny) really means major promotions struggle to get behind him unfortunately. ROH isn’t exactly awash with talent of his calibre right now and could really use him as a workhorse on their undercards…
Caprice Coleman vs Bob Evans vs Silas Young vs Cheeseburger vs Moose vs Dalton Castle
I suppose I probably should mention that Brutal Bob and Cheeseburger are still technically feuding after the split of their annoying little tag team. Why these two still get booked is a genuine mystery to me. More prominently, this is in the midst of a growing rivalry between the Last Real Man and the Party Peacock. Dalton used a low blow to beat Silas at Best In The World, then tried to embarrass him again at Death Before Dishonor only for Young to assault The Boys. Both of those pay-per-views were events to forget for Moose too, as he failed to become #1 contender at BITW then suffered a second consecutive loss to Cedric Alexander at DBD. Prince Nana is randomly on commentary for this.
Nana opens commentary by pointing out that being homosexual is illegal in Ghana (in reference to Dalton)…which is so inappropriate Kelly and Corino can barely get a sentence out to cover for him! Young is so unimpressed by Burger that he throws him straight out of the ring rather than wrestle him. Coleman tries to springboard off the top but is shoved out by Evans…who then botches a back drop on Moose and gets roundly jeered. Castle prances and preens in the middle of the ring, but in doing so turns his back on Young giving him an opportunity to get in some cheap shots. He forms an ad-hoc alliance with Brutal Bob to isolate and wear Castle down – with Silas even finding time to give one of The Boys a smack for good measure. Moose makes the save…but looks f*cking ridiculous as everyone stands and watches him set up various spots. Eventually he press slams Cheese to the top rope, with Coleman following soon after with the inside-out springboard moonsault. SOMERSAULT PLANCHA by Moose! Dalton saves Burger from the Hitstick! Killer Combo on Dalton! Sky Splitter on Silas! SHOTEI from Burger to Brutal Bob! Game Breaker on Cheeseburger! EVEREST GERMAN from Castle to Moose! Bob Evans tries to cheat to pin Moose but Cheeseburger makes a last minute save, although they mistimed it so it looked appalling. Eventually Moose wins with the Hitstick on Evans at 10:33 (shown).
Rating - ** - ROH TV is fifty minutes long, so giving this match ten minutes (plus entrances) is a huge chunk of the episode. Therefore it is pretty disappointing that I don’t feel like they achieved very much here. The main hook was the Dalton/Silas feud and none of their actions were very memorable. Moose gets a win which his career needed, but clearly his push has stalled for now and others needed this more than him. Bob Evans and Cheeseburger both looked like total sh*t (as always) and Coleman did nothing else other than hit a couple of his usual spots. This wasn’t necessarily a bad match…but was so vapid and devoid of purpose that it really did nothing to justify such a serious TV-time commitment.
The Decade enter the ring next, getting so much heat that Sinclair have had to mute crowd obscenities in post-production. BJ speaks of his pride at how quickly Colby Corino is developing under his tutelage. He has a gift for young Colby tonight…the gift of a Gauntlet Match against four ROH try-out camp attendees. He has four big guys (Shaheem Ali, Kongo, Beast Ortiz and Damien ‘Punishment’ Martinez) lined up, although the match never goes ahead as he winds up getting so personal with Steve Corino that the announcer tries to throttle him. Nigel McGuinness comes out to pull Steve away, bringing a hasty end to the segment.
INSIDE ROH – Mandy Leon has some clips of the NJPW tour earlier in the year. This is to promote Okada, Nakamura, Kushida, RPG Vice and the debuting Hirooki Goto coming to the US for Ring Of Honor events in late August.
NEXT WEEK – Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly is set to headline Episode 202
ACH vs Bobby Fish
What sucks is that ACH has been amazingly consistent in 2015…but you’d be forgiven for missing that because he loses almost constantly. I’m not saying they need to make him World Champion, but the guy has been SO good this year it’s almost criminal how little credit he gets for it. He has another high profile match with Bobby Fish tonight, and it is additionally significant because Fish is now officially #1 contender for the TV Title. He earned that accolade via victory in a mini-tournament at Aftershock: Las Vegas – and now effectively has a target on his back for guys like ACH to chase.
As you’d expect Bobby takes this one straight to the mat where he can control the pace and negate all of ACH’s core skills. But the second ACH gets some distance between them he lands an explosive dropkick to demonstrate exactly why the reDRagon member was trying to restrain him. Fish dodges a pescado to seemingly open up an injury to ACH’s midsection – and when we cut back from the ad break he is still targeting that body part. Soon even throwing kicks hurts for ACH and his ribs get crushed again with a Samoan drop soon after. He ducks a Fish running elbow attempt though, and lands a PK Kick from the apron as Bobby falls out of the ring. RUNNING MOONSAULT TO THE FLOOR NAILED! And, to his credit, he does at least visibly attempt to sell his ribs. He has also hurt his leg somewhere in there, so when he misses the double stomp moments later Fish pounces to attack that body part too. ACH hobbles up the ropes…but flies into Fish’s knees attempting the Midnight Star. Fish Hook Deluxe applied... but ACH bridges out to a pinning attempt for 2! Half collapsing in pain, he HIPTOSSES Fish into the turnbuckles. Fish kicks his leg out from under him again though then pursues him up the ropes for the AVALANCHE falcon arrow! Fish wins at 10:04 (shown).
Rating - *** - This was a really enjoyable main event, albeit one which will leave you maddeningly frustrated that they gave that pointless Six Man Mayhem so much time that this only got ten minutes. Bobby Fish singles matches are quickly turning out to be an unexpected plus-point of the gradual reDRagon separation. We all knew O’Reilly was a great wrestler, but some of Fish’s grounded, realistic grap-fests have been superb. I loved his dual-focused work on the ribs and leg, and I loved that from the opening bell he worked exactly the sort of match you’d expect from a technical, MMA-influenced guy working ACH. They didn’t waste time, they weren’t hitting spots for the sake of it – here every move meant something. They just needed more time to make this truly special…
Tape Rating - ** - This was an entirely forgettable episode, but in all honesty it was destined to fail before the opening credits. This was taped over a month ago in the aftermath of Best In The World, but airs after the follow-up PPV (Death Before Dishonor) goes out - and that situation is not acceptable. The material was hopelessly out of date and so little of this episode had any on-going relevance. They sort-of-referenced The Kingdom split in the opener, but didn’t break any new ground there. They sort-of-played up the Castle/Young rivalry in the Six Man Mayhem, but wasted way too much time and didn’t feature those two anywhere near enough. The Corino/Whitmer angle gets good heat, but I don’t see what pay-off there can be which is of any long-term merit to that program. And all of that junk took away from a main event which badly needed more time to create something special. I enjoyed Fish/ACH, and I did like how much heat The Decade were getting…but there’s nothing that makes me want to revisit or overly recommend the episode to anyone else.