ROH on Sinclair – Episode 215 – 4th November 2015

Having been screwed out of the World Championship at All Star Extravaganza, last week Kyle O’Reilly was desperate to get his hands on Adam Cole. Cole slipped through his fingers in the 6-man main event, but was such an ass about it that Nigel McGuinness has added Kyle into this week’s main event instead – so we’ll now have Adam Cole vs AJ Styles vs Kyle O’Reilly to headline. If that wasn’t enough the Young Bucks are in action on the undercard as well. Kevin Kelly, Nigel McGuinness and Mark Briscoe provide commentary from San Antonio, TX.

A Kyle O’Reilly interview starts the show. He talks about his respect for AJ Styles and his anger at Adam Cole’s betrayal. Tonight he is willing to ‘obliterate’ a man he respects to get his revenge on the enemy he hates.

Silas Young/Beer City Bruiser vs Young Bucks
To me booking this seems like a huge waste of a precious Young Bucks booking, but equally I can’t pretend I won’t enjoy watching big old BCB completely gas himself without getting anywhere near keeping up with the Jackson brothers. The surly, no nonsense style of Silas and Bruiser will at least provide an interesting contrast to the flamboyant showmanship of the Bucks. Speaking of flamboyance, Young has now forced The Boys to wear ‘normal’ street clothes so they now accompany him to the ring in jeans and a grey workout vest.

Predictably the Bucks are far too quick for both opponents with Beer City falling victim to the leapfrog dropkick double team almost before he has time to waddle in through the ropes. Size is the Bruiser’s friend though and soon after he swarms Matt into the corner for a fatty cannonball which gets 2. Nick aids his brother with the moonsault off the apron on BCB, but misses a Swanton on Young and eats the Killer Combo. Misery blocked…Peegee Waja Plunge countered with a SUPERKICK by Matt! Silas has seen enough, and orders The Boys in to wrestle the Bucks instead! Apparently there are no rules against that, so when we come back from commercials it’s now Bucks vs Boys! Ripped Jeans Boy is instantly KO’d with a Superkick, but the other one gets to mount some offence on Nick after Young trips him from the floor. Ripped Jeans is back in, and gets a huge pop when he hands a DOUBLE RANA to take down both Jacksons. EARLY ONSET ALZHEIMERS! Nick suicide dives to take out Young and the Bruiser. DOUBLE MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK! Bucks win at 08:36 (shown).

Rating - ** - No great wrestling of any substance here, but it had plenty of light-hearted entertainment value and the live crowd were extremely into it. I’m curious as to what SBG/Delirious are doing with the Bucks right now. They are the top draws in the company, but with War Machine pencilled in as Tag Title challengers for Final Battle and reDRagon now due a title shot before them, how does Delirious intend to give two of his biggest stars something meaningful to do for the remainder of the year? (Or, as I expect, does he have nothing planned…and he’ll spend the rest of the year shoving them in random matches where they’ll steal shows, pop crowds but ultimately tread water and go nowhere?)

Silas and Bruiser angrily yell at The Boys for losing…so the Bucks take pity and come to their aid. Bruiser eats a double Superkick but Young escapes before suffering the same fate.

BJ Whitmer appears at ringside to demand that Steve Corino is fired for the $10 Punch he dished out a couple of weeks ago on television. Whilst that goes on Kevin Kelly confirms that Veda Scott has followed through on her threat to begin legal proceedings against Ring Of Honor too…

Will Ferrara vs Roderick Strong
Possibly my favourite Ferrara match in ROH so far is his bout with Roderick Strong during the Conquest Tour earlier this year. That won’t surprise many, since Roddy is having a phenomenal year, but Will held his own in that match too. The rematch comes to television, and all the pressure is on Strong to produce a commanding victory to build momentum as we head towards his final match against Jay Lethal, where the TV Title will be on the line.

Ferrara explodes out of the blocks and hits a headscissors off the second rope…but soon enough Roderick starts to dominate using his power, explosiveness and back-targeted offence. Such is the ferocity of Strong’s attack that a huge bruise is visible on the right side of Ferrara’s face, with swelling around the eye too. As Mr ROH grinds onto an abdominal stretch I think I spy blood coming from the poor kid’s mouth as well. He fights out with a swinging neckbreaker and follows it with his tornado DDT to at least keep Roderick at a safe distance. TORNADO DDT FROM THE APRON TO THE FLOOR! Code Red gets 2 for the battling Dojo graduate…before he his shut down with a POP UP Death By Roderick! Stronghold wins it for Roddy at 04:56

Rating - ** - The Conquest Tour live event match was vastly superior, but this one accomplished everything it set out to achieve. Strong gets a dominant victory, Ferrara landed a few exciting hope spots so as to not look like a total jabroni and we walk away an appetising step closer to the third chapter in the Lethal/Strong 2015 trilogy.

INSIDE ROH – Mandy Leon re-runs footage from last week which confirmed we are getting Lethal/Strong 3 for the TV Title. Jay Lethal gets interview time to complain about Nigel favouring Roddy, whilst making a load of insider references that make absolutely no sense to a casual viewer. Lethal also replaces Mark Briscoe at the announce table for the main event…

Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly vs AJ Styles
For the second week in a row we have a multi-person main event which will be centred around O’Reilly’s desire to get some payback on Cole for screwing him out of the World Title. Last week Adam avoided capture in a trios tag main event only for Nigel McGuinness to add O’Reilly to his scheduled match with AJ tonight. And although their issue is hugely personal, they would do well to at least partially think about their championship aspirations too – given that Styles is #1 contender to the World Title and only one man has beaten him since he returned to ROH in 2014. If either could pin him here it would be a huge boost to their title chances. All three competitors bring company with them, but Nigel McGuinness ejects them all (the Young Bucks, The Kingdom, Bobby Fish and Michael Elgin) so we can see a clean winner…

Straight to the floor goes Cole…so AJ smacks him in the back of the head to feed him into a flurry of O’Reilly kicks. SLINGSHOT FOREARM TO THE FLOOR by AJ! Kyle punishes him for that by briefly locking in Arm-ageddon…but he releases it to try to break Cole’s leg instead. German suplex on Cole, whilst he grabs a fisherman suplex on Styles! PHENOM DDT OFF THE APRON from Styles to O’Reilly…then a tope suicida by Cole! The two Future Shock rivals take turns teeing off on each other whilst periodically breaking off to ensure AJ is kept at bay. Eventually Styles finds a way to fly back in with the Phenomenal Forearm of course. Calf Killer on Cole! ARM-AGEDDON ON AJ! FIGURE 4 LEGLOCK BY COLE! So Kyle mounts him and palm strikes the sh*t out of his face! Pele on Cole! SUPERKICK ON AJ! JAWBREAKER LARIAT BY O’REILLY! SOLO CHASING THE DRAGON…but Styles breaks the pin. He and Kyle trade strikes at a furious pace, until O’Reilly counters the discus lariat into a triangle choke. Styles wants to convert that to a Styles Clash…only to get superkicked in the back of the head by Cole before he can do it. LAST SHOT on O’Reilly! Cole sneaks the win and escapes O’Reilly’s clutches again at 08:31 (shown).

Rating - *** - A fast, furious and frenetically exciting main event…that will mostly leave you wondering how the hell they couldn’t find more time for three men of this calibre. Ultimately for a free TV main event this was extremely enjoyable though, and to defend Delirious there are plenty of mitigating circumstances. He needs the Cole/O’Reilly feud to stretch to the end of the year, so obviously can’t give too much of that away here. At the same time AJ was struggling with a few well-documented injuries, which caused him to miss ring-time over Glory By Honor weekend and is a big part of the reason why he’s been protected in tags and multi-man matches for most of 2015 in ROH. He was, of course, brilliant here without ever taking away from the Cole/Kyle stuff.

The Kingdom return to do a number on O’Reilly, which obviously kick-starts a mass brawl as Fish, Elgin and the Bucks reappear too. Nick Jackson hits a somersault plancha onto the pile of bodies, then pulls Cole and Taven inside the ring. He hands them to Matt and AJ for a DOUBLE INDY-TAKER! Jay Lethal stares down Styles as the show ends…

Tape Rating - *** - Just like last week, without having a single stellar, stand-out match this was still a really decent episodic broadcast from ROH. I wasn’t having my time wasted, I never felt bored, and each segment executed a clear purpose and built towards long-term storyline objectives.

Top 5 All Star Extravaganza TV Taping Matches
5) Moose vs Donovan Dijak (*** - Episode 214)
4) The Kingdom vs Michael Elgin/Bobby Fish/Kyle O’Reilly (*** - Episode 214)
3) Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly vs AJ Styles (*** - Episode 215)
2) Jay Briscoe vs Adam Page (**** - Episode 213)
1) ACH vs Matt Sydal (**** - Episode 212)

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