McXal's Reviews

Whilst we continue to follow-up on the events of the 14th Anniversary Show, the ROH roster is gearing up to head to WrestleMania weekend for Supercard Of Honor 10. Don’t expect much build or promotional material for those shows tonight (seriously, don’t, I’ve already reviewed this show as they released it on DVD, and it is barely mentioned)…but we do have a rare televised World Title match scheduled. Jay Lethal will be defending against New Japan’s Hirooki Goto in the main event. Once again Kevin Kelly and Mr Wrestling III are in Las Vegas, NV.

There is a lot of history between Roderick and two of his opponents tonight. He and Page have crossed paths before, mostly on Roddy’s way out of The Decade (and before Page too jumped ship). Going further back, Strong and Matt Sydal also used to be in Generation Next together, but have also been on the opposing side of some scorching battles over the ROH Tag Titles years ago. The one unifying element all these four share is that they lost their respective matches at the 14th Anniversary. Strong was pinned by Ishii for a second time. Page failed to beat arch rival BJ Whitmer. Matt Sydal’s recent hot streak was spectacularly snuffed out by The Elite in a trios match. And Moose, despite a great showing against IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada, also slumped to defeat. Which man is the first to rebound from the PPV disappointment?

Sydal and Roderick’s semi-respectful fist bump (on the back of Strong being a dick to Page and Moose) is a nice touch to pay homage to their history. It doesn’t stop Roddy crushing Sydal with an early backbreaker of course. His impressive start continues as he next dismisses Page following a gourdbuster into the top rope. His luck runs out with Moose though, who levels him with the Go To Hell Bomb for 2. Sydal tricks Moose to the floor…but then tries a slingshot headscissors and gets caught for an APRON BOMB! Strong baseball slides Moose THROUGH the guardrails! SSP TORPEDO HEADBUTT by Page! He looks for the Rite Of Passage on Roddy, who slips to the apron and delivers the APRON BACKBREAKER on Moose! Slice/flatliner combo from Sydal to Page and Strong! Moose full on clatters Roddy with his discus lariat, then puts both Sydal and Page on the top rope to dropkick both of them to the floor. SPRINGBOARD SUPER RANA by Sydal! DEATH BY RODERICK! BUCKSHOT LARIAT! SPIKE DDT from Page to Roderick! NECK DROP DRAGON SUPLEX ON SYDAL! What a flurry from Hangman! He looks set to close out the win until BJ Whitmer runs out and distracts him. SYDAL PRESS ON PAGE! END OF HEARTACHE ON SYDAL! KNOCKOUT KNEE ON PAGE! Strong takes the win at 08:19 (shown).

Rating - *** - I had no real expectations going into this, so it was a genuine pleasant surprise that it turned out so enjoyably. Normally these undercard multi-man matches on TV barely capture my interest, but they were allowed to turn up the heat here and delivered some really explosive flurries of offence. The last minute, in particular, was extremely exciting.

Adam Cole arrives for Story Time, ready to address his recent ‘downward spiral’ (i.e. the World Title loss on PPV and TV loss to Sydal). It quickly becomes something of a rant; swearing that Kyle O’Reilly will never be World Champion, and that Cole himself is certain to be the man who ends Jay Lethal’s reign. He is eventually interrupted by The Kingdom’s entrance music…and a limping Matt Taven on crutches. After faking pleasantries, Taven calls Cole dead-weight in The Kingdom and proclaims himself to be the true star of the group. He kicks Cole out and vows to return from injury to ‘rebuild The Kingdom’ in his image. He leaves, and on commentary Kelly and Mr Wrestling contemplate how Cole can ever become World Champion again without anyone watching his back…

TWO WEEKS – Dalton Castle gets his wish for a Fight Without Honor against Silas Young. 

Up next we are set to see Cheeseburger in action against Foxx Vinyer. They get through circa a minute of action before All Night Express come out and destroy Vinyer. They intimidate Cheeseburger too…whilst berating the Vegas fans for how they acted during their Tag Title match against War Machine. Kenny is, once again, outstanding on the mic – talking about how his daughter was in the front row crying whilst the rest of the crowd was sh*tting on the match. It gets better as they read ‘Mean Tweets’, then bury the rest of the teams in the division. Of course it all builds to them assaulting Burger. War Machine and the Briscoes (who had just been verbally trashed by ANX) run out for a belated save…but of course then turn to face each other knowing they will inevitably be facing each other for the Tag Titles somewhere down the road…

When Goto arrived in the United States for this weekend he was in a career slump. He’d failed to capture the IWGP Heavyweight Title, and at Honor Rising we’d even seen his own partner Shibata slap him in the face to try to motivate him. Perhaps he turned the corner at the 14th Anniversary when he scored a hard-fought victory over Dalton Castle. His reward is a World Title shot against a man who has undeniably been a fighting champion. This is taped just 24-hours after his gruelling triple threat defence against Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly and is effectively his third third title defence in a week. Many ROH Champions of the past have found months of having targets on their back and constant brutal title defences too much to take. Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness were never the same after their World Title reigns. Homicide was so broken down in his quest to get it he barely kept it for any time at all. Jay Briscoe was so hurt he had to relinquish the title and still carries the shoulder injury to this day. Adam Cole’s shoulders are in poor shape. Even the great Samoa Joe couldn’t go on forever. Does Lethal have enough in the tank to survive another challenge in such a short space of time?

Lethal obviously wants to end this quickly and jumps Goto during the handshakes to that end. But it takes just a couple of heavy strikes from the challenger to slow Lethal down. Indeed, he crumbles to the mat and hides in the ropes clearly in real pain. Taeler Hendrix almost has no choice but to get involved, creating a distraction which enables Lethal to TOPE SUICIDA Goto up the aisle. Note he’s so beaten up there is no trilogy tonight! Jay gasps for air and slouches back into the ring to gather his thoughts, only moving to retrieve the challenger when it is apparent he isn’t going to win by count-out. Goto fires up with a lariat then the Muramasa kick in the corner. A roundhouse kick to Lethal’s clearly-wounded back blocks the Lethal Injection, and is followed with a back drop driver for 2. DVD backbreaker does further damage to Jay…but again Goto has to pause to get Hendrix and Martini out of the ring. Lethal Injection scores and hands the champ a victory at 07:13 (shown).

Rating - *** - I won’t pretend this was a bombastic, exciting or overly memorable World Title Match, but as a study into how gruelling and thankless it can be as the champion of a company like ROH this was fascinating. Lethal clearly wasn’t in top shape out there. Some of it kayfabe, but my assumption is that some of it wasn’t. He was slower, he modified his moveset to protect himself, and this wasn’t booked to go long at all. Against that back drop some of this felt quite dramatic. Simple shoulder tackles from the sturdy Goto were sold like he was getting hit by a truck. He was constantly rolling for the ropes, gasping for air and working defensively. It was a side of the champion we don’t always see and did a lot to play up the ‘fighting champion’ element of the character he has portrayed recently (even if ultimately he needed to cheat to win). 

The House Of Truth pose triumphantly…as Donovan Dijak and Prince Nana march down the aisle. Dijak is evidently here for payback after being fired and punches Lethal’s lights out in short order. Martini tries to nail him with the Book Of Truth, but to no effect. DISCUS KICK on Martini! Kelly and Mr Wrestling III sell that like death and call for immediate medical attention as the show ends. 

Tape Rating - *** - In terms of in-ring content nothing touched the Bucks vs Tanahashi/Elgin match, but what I liked about this is that there was less reliance on New Japan guys (even Goto in the main event wasn’t really ‘the story’) and a focus on pushing forward with storylines and angles for the core roster. Donovan Dijak’s return was the punchline, albeit rather late and out of left field considering he was ditched by the House Of Truth weeks ago and not been seen since. Nevertheless his return is a welcome one. Beneath that the segment featuring the All Night Express (plus the Briscoes, War Machine and Cheeseburger) was probably the highlight of the show for me. Adam Cole and Matt Taven addressed the future of The Kingdom, and there was barely a NJPW reference to be found in the opener, other than the belt Sydal wore round his waist. Of course the New Japan relationship is key to the commercial viability of the ROH product right now, but I also want to see more shows like this where they confidently and sensibly promote, develop and enhance the talents on their core roster.