McXal's Reviews

This will be a momentous episode of Ring Of Honor television, as it features the final ROH match (to date anyway) of one of their longest-serving, hardest-working and most successful performers of all time. In an understated, relaxed and quiet manner typical of the way he has conducted himself over more than a decade in ROH, Roddy quietly prepares to say his goodbyes – in one final bout against the popular showman Dalton Castle. As one talent exits, another prepares to enter tonight as well – because this episode will also feature the in-ring debut of Jay White. Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness are, once again, in Concord, NC.

Leading up to Best In The World, Kamaitachi had been impressing everyone with a string of outstanding matches against some of the biggest names in ROH. But he wasn’t winning a whole lot, and frustration finally got the better of him. He turned his back on his desire to be an honourable competitor, and returned to the rudo ways which characterised his time in CMLL. He attacked fellow NJPW Dojo graduate Jay White (sitting ringside as a fan at the pay-per-view), entering into an alliance with The Addiction which saw him aid them to victory over the Motor City Machine Guns. Christopher Daniels accompanies Kamai to ringside tonight. White makes his in-ring ROH debut here; the New Zealander comes with a big reputation as a real rising star to come out of New Japan’s training scheme.

Kamaitachi throws his ring jacket into White’s face, allowing him to take a cheap-shot which gets the match started. He delivers a big spear through the ropes to knock Jay to the floor, and is them on him again in a flash with a missile dropkick off the apron. Kevin Kelly is in his element spunking all his NJPW knowledge over everything. White’s misfortune continues as he inadvertently delivers a big kick to the guardrails, before Kamai leaves for the ring and Daniels decks him with a clothesline on the floor. Tachi returns to attack the leg; smashing it against the ringpost with a smile on his face. Inside the ring he hits a dragon screw before applying a Figure 4. White frees himself with a DDT but has to pause to tend to his injured left leg before he can continue to fight back. He delivers a running suplex and motions to nip up…but his leg is too messed up to do it. Urinage blocked by Tachi, who lands a falcon arrow and hops up the ropes. Meteora nailed for 2! White blocks the Time Bomb and does land his urinage suplex second time of asking. Chris Daniels gets involved again by sweeping Jay’s bad leg and almost causing him to be pinned as a result. Kamaitachi accidentally blasts Daniels with a running elbow, then turns into the KIWI CRUSHER! White wins at 07:51 (shown).

Rating - *** - This felt very much like a decent NJPW Young Lions match, albeit one with liberal amounts of Christopher Daniels interference thrown in. Kamaitachi was doing great before, but did look a little more home with a more aggressive and villainous edge to his work. White’s selling of the injured leg was irritatingly inconsistent, however, he has a real presence and did evoke real empathy as he fought to overcome the odds of what amounted to a 2-on-1 situation. 

The Addiction attack White after the match, bringing out the Machine Guns to come to the New Zealander’s aid. Sabin warns Kamaitachi that he has made a poor decision aligning himself with the ‘Bad Influence’ of Daniels and Kaz…then challenges the three of them to an impromptu trios tag…

It was the distraction created by Kamaitachi’s ringside brawl with White that enabled The Addiction to pick up the victory over MCMG at the PPV. Jay just got a measure of revenge with a win over Kamai, but the Machine Guns still very much have a score to settle with the ROH Tag Champions. 

We JIP with The Addiction doing a number on Sabin’s neck – an injury they have exploited repeatedly throughout 2016. They snag him with the powerbomb/neckbreaker combo which necessitates Shelley diving in to rescue the match for his team. Sabin blocks the Fall From Grace by Daniels, scrambling into a form of DDT and tagging in the fired up White…who pelts Daniels with a missile dropkick for 2. ASCS Rush from the Machine Guns to Kamaitachi! They then land stereo pescados the floor as inside the ring Daniels tries to set Jay up for the BME. KIWI CRUSHER ON DANIELS! White wins again! 05:39 (shown) is your time

Rating - ** - If the plan was to do this match I’d rather they’d have gone with it from the outset, or waited until a live event or the next TV tapings to ‘do it properly’. This was decent for the brief amount of time given (The Addiction working Sabin’s neck was really good) but just wasn’t long enough or substantive enough to feel like it had any long-term significance. Letting White win twice was a nice way to debut him I suppose…

Bullet Club are NOT happy that Kyle O’Reilly is getting a title shot next week rather than Adam Cole. Cole promises that he will not allow O’Reilly to become ROH World Champion…

I believe this is an ROH TV debut for the Pretty Boy Killers. They have been conspicuous by their absence since costing War Machine the Tag Championship at the Columbus stop on the Road To Best In The World tour. Now they have made their way to TV you can be sure that Hanson and Ray Rowe will be watching on a monitor somewhere and plotting for when those two massive teams eventually meet to do battle.

Taylor pretty much knocks Anthony out with a single punch in the first second of the match. Keith then tackles the poor guy so hard he almost gets cut in half by the middle rope. It means they are alone with Andrews – hitting him with a Spirit Bomb/flying splash combo for the squash victory at 01:34

Rating - N/A - Exactly the match it should have been. The jobbers were beaten senseless, and the TV viewing audience are given an emphatic introduction to the Pretty Boy Killers. 

War Machine head straight out to the ring looking for a fight. The brawl goes to the floor, with Lee spilling out onto everyone with a mammoth TOPE ATOMICO! It lays out Hanson and Rowe, allowing the Pretty Boy Killers to walk away having made a real statement. 

NEXT WEEK – O’Reilly and Lethal each get interview time to promote next week’s World Title bout. Kyle reminds the champ that he has both pinfall and submission victories over him in the past. He thinks it will happen again with the ROH Championship on the line…

Up next a bandaged and limping BJ Whitmer enters the ring, flanked by bathrobe grandpa Kevin Sullivan. BJ talks about he and Corino being the metaphorical heirs to Sullivan’s evil crown, as the audience rightly heckles him for being boring and talking complete bollocks. Sullivan promises to make chaos ‘rain’ over ROH…and urges Corino to embrace the ‘evil’.

This ‘Mr ROH’s Ring Of Honor farewell. With rumours swirling about where he may end up next, after an immensely successful career which has seen him complete the ROH Triple Crown, Strong opted not to re-sign with Ring Of Honor again and leave to pursue other options (eventually ending up in NXT). He dropped a hard-fought contest to Mark Briscoe at Best In The World, and won’t want to go out staring at the lights twice consecutively. Castle needs the win here too as he’ll hope to rebound after failing to defeat Bobby Fish to become TV Champion at Best In The World.

Castle wants to grapple with Strong…who is equally keen to keep out of his grasp. Dalton does grab hold and delivers a suplex before riding Roddy all around the ring. Mr ROH doesn’t like that at all, changing gears for perhaps the last time and popping up off the ground to hit a gourdbuster on the ropes. That’s followed by a double underhook suplex which leaves Dalton, who had already started having real problems with his back, clutching at his spine. RUNNING BOOT TAKES OUT A BOY! Strong whacks the other Boy to the ground as well, and when Castle tries to take retribution Roddy ducks the apron feint rana to deliver an OLYMPIC SLAM INTO THE RINGPOST! That move leaves Castle’s back seriously injured – to the extent that even when he goes hit a suplex throw back inside the ring he faces a real battle just to get back to his feet. Everest German is blocked…as is the Bang-A-Rang, before Mr ROH decimates the midsection further with the Muso. He starts chopping Dalton so hard in the corner that Nigel McGuinness starts twitching in his seat due to muscle memory of being in the same position! Superplex blocked and countered with an overhead belly to belly…but tellingly Castle doesn’t pop his hips and doesn’t go down onto his back to add impact to the move. RAGGED HEAT SEEKING MISSILE! Followed by the apron feint headscissors…then a second tope dive into the guardrails. EVEREST GERMAN! Strong kicks out, largely thanks to the fact that Dalton can’t maintain the bridge. The Peacock hits a dead-lift capture suplex, right into a BACK DROP DRIVER! SNAP EXPLODER SUPLEX! EVEREST AGAIN! This time he ditches the bridge for a standard pin and still only gets a two-count. JUMPING KNEE by Roddy! SUPERPLEX DESTROYS THE BACK! DEATH BY RODERICK! SICK KICK! DALTON KICKS OUT! Jumping Knee COUNTERED INTO BANG-A-RANG! CASTLE WINS! Strong’s ROH career is over at 12:40 (shown).

Rating - **** - To reiterate how remarkable Castle is, by this point he is rumoured to have been actively wrestling with a broken back. The silent crowd didn’t necessarily pick up on enormous amounts of the drama, but watching Strong tear into the spine of a man with a potentially legitimately broken back was quite the spectacle. The contest meshed together the strengths of the two men incredibly well. Dalton wanted to grapple, mat wrestle and throw suplexes…which Roddy sought to avoid by beating the sh*t out of an opponent’s back one more time. Fittingly, given that it was over-confidence and the ‘Roddy vs The World’ gimmick which saw him drop the TV Title to Ishii in Tokyo, once again it was Strong’s cockiness which was his undoing. From the moment he attacked The Boys without warning on the floor he lit a fire under Dalton, making the Peacock determined to win it for them. The finishing sequence was tremendous and well worth checking out. Sadly none of Roddy’s farewell speech is included on the broadcast edit. Indeed, Kevin and Nigel didn’t actually directly reference Strong leaving at all which I think is extremely poor form. A guy who has served Ring Of Honor for as long, as loyally and as well as Roderick has deserved more of a send-off.

Tape Rating - *** - A strong start and a great end to the episode mean it is one worth checking out. Strong/Castle was a fittingly enjoyable way to draw a curtain on Roddy’s remarkable Ring Of Honor career. He has spent more than ten years breaking backs, stealing shows and rattling off 4*+ matches – and he went out in much the same way (putting a potential future World Champion over in the process). The Whitmer/Sullivan segment was utter trash, but you don’t need me to tell you that, and I didn’t necessarily agree with wasting the Addiction/Kamaitachi vs MCMG/White trios match on a five minute TV filler impromptu deal…but White/Kamaitachi at the start and Roddy/Dalton at the end are more than enough to recommend the episode.