McXal's Reviews

With the 14th Anniversary in the books, the next big events on Ring Of Honor’s calendar are the Supercard Of Honor double header in Texas for WrestleMania weekend, then the annual New Japan War Of The Worlds events. Right now on TV we’re still rounding out the Winter Warriors Tour, and since this is content taped before the last PPV one suspects this episode will be light on significant storyline content too. The scheduled main event is Christopher Daniels against Dalton Castle, which has the potential to be a great match under the right circumstances. Beneath that the stand-out feature is obviously the 2016 Top Prospect Tournament final pitting Brian Fury against Lio Rush – with everyone still buzzing about Lio’s spectacular semi-final last week. Kevin Kelly and Mr Wrestling III call the action from Nashville, TN once again.

Dalton Castle opens the show with a deliciously camp and provocative promo. He is ‘hungry’ for victories apparently, which is bad news for Christopher Daniels…

It is impossible to argue that Fury’s road to the final has been easier than Lio’s. Although he had a tough Round One bout with Shaheem Ali, his mix of experience and illegal tactics has seen smooth progress to our climactic stage. Rush, on the other hand, is already handicapped by being significantly smaller and less-experienced, and comes in battle weary after surviving real wars with Jason Kincaid and Punishment Martinez. His semi-final win over Martinez last week is definitely in the discussion for best TPT match ever and really is worth checking out. Can Lio pull one last upset out of the bag to win the whole tournament?

Fury tries to negate Lio’s speed by working the mat, although as a former amateur wrestler Rush isn’t completely incapable in that department. He works hard to quicken the pace, get some distance and is rewarded when he gets to pepper Brian with kicks, then follows those with a SOMERSAULT PLANCHA to the floor! But his enthusiasm is his undoing against the wily veteran…who catches him sprinting to hiptoss him into the guardrails as we fade to commercials. When we come back it’s more of the same with Lio working hard to keep things quick and land strikes from all angles, but Fury constantly one-upping him and finding ways to beat him down. Rush is able to counter the Sky High though – dropping Brian with a rana then spiking him on his head with a tornado DDT. They fight on the turnbuckles; an area where Lio is always likely to be strong. He proves it by knocking Brian back and getting phenomenal hangtime on a frog splash. Fury tries to pin him using the ropes…but Todd Sinclair sees through that particular trick. Sky High nailed instead…but Rush kicks out! RUSH HOUR NAILED! Lio wins the TPT at 07:19

Rating - *** - I think you have to consider the 2016 TPT a roaring success. I would have booked it slightly different, but there’s no denying that the right man and star of the tournament (Rush) was a deserving winner (unlike last year when Dalton Castle was the obvious break-out star and didn’t go past the first round). There’s also no denying that the most deserving talents in the rest of the field in Punishment Martinez and Coast To Coast eventually all got deals as well. The backbone of this competitive and enjoyable final was another strong Lio Rush individual performance. He exudes babyface charm in this role, and was hugely relatable as he came under pressure from a frustrated veteran trying every trick in the book to land a big contract and payday late into his career. He took everything Fury had (including his finishing move) before winning and leaves the tournament with a huge amount of credit. 

Nigel McGuinness and Cary Silkin congratulate Lio as he celebrates the win. 

NEXT WEEK – A seven team tag team gauntlet headlines next week’s episode. reDRagon are confident of victory and don’t believe any men can touch them…

I can’t recall Kongo being booked since the 2014 Top Prospect Tournament, and he certainly hasn’t gotten any smaller. He isn’t to be confused with the TNA wrestler Kongo Kong either. He works a bare-footed wildman gimmick and returns for a battle of the giants as he takes on Moose. Will his sheer size pose an issue, or will Moose’s obvious athletic advantage prove the difference maker? 

They tee off on each from the outset until Moose dropkicks Kongo so hard that his big stomach almost spills out of his minimal gear. An attempt at the Hitstick on the floor is blocked though, and Kongo retaliates with a ‘South American Cannonball’ which hits so hard into the guardrails they almost buckle beneath him. Back inside Kongo wails on the former Atlanta Falcon, but just doesn’t do enough damage. Moose no sells an exploder suplex to land both a discus lariat and a somersault senton for 2. Kongo hits back with a Pounce…but is one-upped by Moose and his rope-run crossbody. Hitstick delivers the win for Moose at 05:03

Rating - DUD - I’m almost bored of talking about the sort of wrestlers ROH are putting on their TV show and the impression they want to give of their product. This wasn’t a good match on any level. As a squash it dragged on far too long, to the detriment of Moose’s credibility. As a standalone match it was surprisingly tension-less. It gave a vibe of going through the motions, which is really hard to explain given that one of them is fighting to earn a spot. 

The Young Bucks plan on using next week’s Tag Gauntlet to stake their claim as the best team in the division. 

EARLIER TODAY - Mike ‘P-Dog’ Posey tries to hijack the show with his Get Along Gang…bringing out Cheeseburger to fight them all off. Thankfully this segment is heavily edited to brief highlights.

TWO WEEKS – The stars of New Japan come to Las Vegas for Ring Of Honor television. 

Up next we are supposed to get a match between Cedric Alexander and Adam Page, but it doesn’t happen because BJ Whitmer runs out and assaults Page. Alexander joins in because he’s an asshole, which brings out his rival Jon Gresham to brawl with him too. 

A video package before this one shows the attack Dalton endured at the hands of Silas Young and the Beer City Bruiser last week. He may still be carrying injuries from that, and he almost certainly will be distracted by his ongoing war with the Last Real Man. Can the Fallen Angel exploit it? To make matters worse, Silas Young is at ringside on commentary too, supposedly at the request of Daniels.

Daniels is a renowned strategist, but even he looks perplexed at how to work an athlete like Castle who has great strength but also comparable if not superior amateur grappling skills on the canvas. When they do lock up Dalton generally comes out on top. Next he tries to make it more of a fight on the floor, but winds up being the guy taking bumps into the railing. Castle gets over-confident and looks for the apron-619…and that’s the window of opportunity the Ring General needs. He drives Dalton’s injured ribs into the barricade then pulls him straight back in to continue working that injured midsection. The veteran looks so comfortable pulling out all manner of tricks to attack the ribs. Castle hits a suplex in an effort to mount a comeback but of course comes up holding his ribs in pain. Daniels tries to capitalise with a crossbody…but is CAUGHT for an overhead belly to belly suplex. EVEREST GERMAN gets 2, mostly likely because it hurts Castle too much to maintain the bridge. Back to the floor they go with Daniels trying to use the ring apron to further hurt the sternum…except this time Castle counters with the apron-feint headscissors. FLYING CROSSBODY MISSES! Castle crashes down on his ribs in pain, but has to somehow drag himself back up to punch Frankie Kazarian in the face when he starts trying to attack The Boys. Daniels pounces with ANGEL’S WINGS! The Ring General scores the victory at 09:29 (shown)

Rating - *** - Hiding him in The Addiction, rarely letting him speak and rarely letting him loose in featured singles matches means people may frequently forget what an absolute treasure Chris Daniels truly is. His talent is ageless, his promo skills as good as they ever were, and his ability to saunter through a competitive, solid TV main event as if it was nothing at all is undiminished. Castle is a likeable talent with a bright future, but for me this was all about the Fallen Angel. His body language, his demeanour, his strategising – he led this throughout and did such a strong job. I understand that as he ages and he needs to protect his body working as a tag team is actually more to his benefit and to preserve his longevity…but matches like this remind you that when he needs to turn it on he so can.

Silas Young, of course, now leaves commentary to verbally berate Castle for losing. Dalton has heard enough of him and grabs a microphone. The Peacock complains that Silas has made him miserable and taken his focus away from winning championships…so wants to end the war in a Fight Without Honor. 

Tape Rating - *** - Not as good as last week of course, but I had no problem with this episode at all. Once again they did a decent fist of making the show seem significant and relevant without being able to acknowledge any 14th Anniversary fallout because it was taped weeks in advance. Lio Rush was absolutely the right call to win the Top Prospect Tournament and legitimately is a ‘top prospect’. His match with Brian Fury wasn’t as good as the thrill-ride against Punishment Martinez in the semis, but Rush’s individual performance was outstanding again. Hopefully he’ll be signed up and put onto more shows than not as quickly as possible. The main event was another solid, free-to-air ten minute wrestling match which breezed by as well. There’s some less appealing stuff in the middle, but on the whole this was a half-decent follow-up episode to the great one last week.