McXal's Reviews

The last month of television (i.e. the build-up to Death Before Dishonor 14) has been tremendous, compelling viewing. It could even be considered among the very best blocks of TV the promotion has delivered since Sinclair bought out Cary Silkin. But with the pay-per-view in the books we are once again in that awkward place whereby they are running content taped well in advance of the most recent big show. That’s not necessarily a problem – but it does make continuing that momentum more difficult. We know next week we are getting The Addiction defending the Tag Titles versus the Young Bucks. I can’t recall seeing anything announced for this week, but a brief web-search has revealed that we’ll be seeing the debut of CMLL’s Stuka Jr., and a main event of Jay Briscoe against New Japan’s Jay White – which could be really special given Briscoe’s form as of late. We rejoin Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness in Philadelphia, PA.

Earlier in the year it felt like ROH were really going to get behind Gresham. He got a couple of wins over Cedric Alexander, and delivered a very impressive performance in a ‘Roddy vs The World’ encounter with Strong too. But then came Supercard weekend, then came the New Japan US tour, then all of a sudden he’d vanished. But he is back for this taping, and ready once again to prove himself against Bullet Club’s Adam Page. Although this was taped beforehand of course, this one airs just 24 hours after Hangman delivered the biggest win of his career by defeating Jay Briscoe cleanly at Death Before Dishonor on pay-per-view.

The first minute of this match is a thing of absolute beauty. After Page tries to cheap-shot Gresh before the bell they launch into a spectacular back and forth exchange at incredible speed, right into near-miss and mirror image stuff…then Gresham lands a springboard rana to send Hangman to the floor. It doesn’t stop out there either with Page catching him trying a dive off the apron to hurl him head-first back the way he came into the ringpost. A commercial is inserted fight afterwards which REALLY hurts the flow of the match though. Back from commercials with Gresham attempting a quebrada into a DDT, only for Page to catch and counter him again. Gresham’s technical wizardry starts to tell though and he opens up an injury to Hangman’s arm. ARM CAPTURE Stunner scores, leaving Page in position for a bridging German suplex which gets Gresh a two-count. Next he drives Page shoulder-first into the ringpost! As Hangman looks to Buckshot Lariat his way back in Gresh simply dodges it to deliver a running punt to the arm. Octopus Stretch is blocked though, and this time Hangman does hit the Buckshot Lariat. Rite Of Passage wins it for Page at 04:20 (shown).

Rating - *** - Probably a little generous, but I really dug this. Gresham is an absolutely phenomenal worker who is perfect for ROH. I understand he’s not the biggest guy, but he’s so SO good. Even in a five-minute sprint the amount of serious, high quality stuff he was able to pack into this was quite the spectacle. 

NEXT WEEK – The Cabinet face Dalton Castle and The Boys. King, Titus and Coleman do not think Dalton is good for wrestling, so need to eradicate him in order to make it ‘great again’…

NEXT WEEK – War Machine finally get their hands on the Pretty Boy Killers

Speaking of next week, the Young Bucks are here to call it a ‘rib’ that they are only 1-time ROH Tag Champions. They are fed up of the ‘old dudes’ having their belts, and plan a giant Superkick Party next week in order to take the title from them…

Is this the first time a CMLL talent has come to ROH? Given that New Japan have a strong relationship with CMLL in Mexico, it isn’t surprising that they could be the conduit to Ring Of Honor forming a relationship with the lucha libre group too. Stuka Jr. makes his debut tonight, and has a smart choice of opponent in Kamaitachi. Kamai was on excursion in CMLL before coming to the US for his spell in ROH, so presumably has crossed paths with this particular luchador before. Christopher Daniels accompanies Kamaitachi to the ring.

Stuka isn’t a Rey Mysterio-esque diminutive luchador; he is a thick gentleman and has no problem driving Tachi right out of the ring. TOPE SUICIDA NAILED! He wants to hit another dive right after but Chris Daniels drags him off the ropes whilst Kamaitachi feigns injury. When we return from commercials Kamai has Stuka pinned in the corner trying to remove his (specially embroidered with the ROH logo) mask! The Mexican scrambles to the floor to prevent that happening, so Kamaitachi follows him and rams a chair into his leg whilst Daniels distracts the official. Pretty soon Stuka’s leg is so injured he can’t stand, let alone deliver any of the aerial offence luchadors are famed for. Paul Turner practically has to help him out of the ropes after Kamai wrenches his knee in the corner. On the floor Stuka hits a tilta-whirl backbreaker…then scrambles up to the top rope for a MOONSAULT OVER THE RINGPOST TO THE FLOOR! He rattled his bad leg on the guardrail on the way down there, but apparently doesn’t feel any ill-effects. He tries a moonsault back into the ring but this time Hiromu gets his feet up. Daniels tries to grab the bad leg again, distracting him for long enough for Kamai to hit the inverted sunset flip off the top for 2. It sets off a frantic exchange of near-falls, culminating with the ref getting squashed in the corner. SPRINGBOARD PLANCHA TO THE FLOOR wipes out Daniels! Stuka hits a springboard splash back into the ring as well…but the ref is still down so doesn’t count. KAMAITACHI RIPS HIS MASK OFF! Schoolboy pin sees Kamai score a dastardly victory at 11:37 (shown).

Rating - *** - This entertained the hell out of me, and on a ‘dead’ week of television airing the night after a PPV show it was a great choice to be included on the show. It felt fresh and totally different to what we normally see from a Ring Of Honor broadcast. Kamaitachi’s familiarity with the lucha style obviously helped, and the shocking manner of his victory (removing the mask) adds some genuine momentum to his new heel act. Stuka’s performance was decent, albeit a reminder of why I don’t follow lucha libre all that closely (I’m not sure Lucha Underground counts). The big athletic dives he hit were wonderful, but deciding to sell the leg that Tachi worked on all match by hitting TWO tilta-whirl backbreakers wound me up. Still, he was certainly good enough for me to give the thumbs up to more CMLL talent coming to the US in the future.

More nonsensical Corino/Whitmer/Sullivan video packages come next. Sullivan retreads old ground talking about wanting to leave his violent legacy to his ‘two sons’ Steve and BJ, but Corino has disappointed him. Whitmer gloats about being the chosen ‘son’. Corino is shown on a beach jabbering like a loon.

New Zealand-born Jay White is undefeated in ROH singles action thus far (although he did fail to become #1 contender to the TV Title at Death Before Dishonor). Entering a televised main event with Jay Briscoe is a big step up, however. Will he be able to profit on the fact that the former World Champion is distracted by Bullet Club and Hangman Page in particular? The injured Motor City Machine Guns are at ringside supporting White, as he and Shelley are long-time friends.

White is understandably cagey but takes Briscoe by surprise with the technical proficiency of his work in the opening exchange. Briscoe instantly retorts with an emphatic shoulder block to put him back in his place though. That smash-mouth, hard-hitting style brings Briscoe continued success and has the Kiwi on the back foot for a prolonged period of time. Everything he does is built around a brawling style which stops White building up any speed or using his technical, NJPW Dojo-taught skills. ELBOW SUICIDA NAILED by Briscoe! Nigel and Kevin speculate that White hit his head on the rails absorbing that blow. Still reeling from it White is pulled back into the ring and given the Day One Neckbreaker, then the DVD for 2. Jay Driller COUNTERED to a German suplex though, leaving them both down on the mat temporarily. White rallies – hitting a slingshot suplex from the apron to the floor before returning to the ring to deliver the running suplex as well. Urinage suplex gets a nearfall, and he maintains a hold of Briscoe’s arm to roll right into the Nagata Lock II! A trickle of blood comes from White’s eyebrow…and Briscoe is on it in a flash with a headbutt then a Masato Tanaka-esque Roaring Elbow! Elbows and stomps in the corner by White though…but just when he thinks he’s proven he can strike with Briscoe, the former ROH Champion explodes his way again with a discus lariat. Briscoe hits a superplex…taking so much out of both men that they lie flat out alongside each other upon landing. Briscoe hammers White with elbows…but the New Zealander keeps firing back! The strike battle hots up again, only for the bell to ring at 14:01 (shown). Bobby Cruise announces that ‘television time remaining’ has expired (the episode genuinely does have twenty seconds left to run) so it’s a draw

Rating - **** - Hear me out on this rating, as I’m aware the non-event of a finish will divide opinion. I think that a time limit draw made REAL sense given the story they’d worked throughout this match. They were trying to put White over as a hot new star who was defying expectations by not only surviving, but actually taking the fight to former two-time World Champion Jay Briscoe. He had a hot start where he showed what a dangerous technician he could be…but then endured ten minutes of hell as Briscoe showed his class and dominating proceedings with his hard-hitting, brawling style which negated all of White’s primary weapons. The Kiwi survived it and actually started hitting back just as hard as he was getting hit. The match ended with him not giving an inch and smashing Briscoe across the face. If they didn’t want to put White over with a win, this was the next-best scenario as it makes it seem like Briscoe couldn’t beat him. It wasn’t necessarily the most exciting match and I’m certain that the finish will have annoyed many (it definitely could have been executed better)…BUT they had a story to tell and delivered it well. I’d argue the biggest hindrance to this was actually too much content elsewhere in the episode. Could a couple of minutes have been shaved from Stuka/Kamaitachi? Did Gresham/Page need to run this week? Why on earth does an angle featuring Kevin Sullivan exist in 2016 at all? Removing these would’ve given broadcast time for a couple of extra minutes of this…

Tape Rating - *** - Considering how bad these post-PPV shows can be, this was really impressive. Jon Gresham opened the show with a stellar little exhibition of his immense skill, Stuka Jr. and Kamaitachi gave a unique and totally different style of professional wrestling to the content we usually get on Ring Of Honor television and the main event, whilst divisive, was fundamentally sound if nothing else and gives us a genuinely newsworthy development in the form of White taking Briscoe to the limit.