McXal's Reviews

Tag team wrestling takes centre stage this week. Motor City Machine Guns will defend the Tag Titles against The Dawgs (no, I don't know what they did to deserve that either), but they won't be in the main event. That spot is reserved, of course, for the Young Bucks. They are in triple threat tag action, joined by the Best Friends and the CMLL team of Dragon Lee and Titan. Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana are once again at ringside in Philadelphia, PA for commentary.

LAST WEEK - After the show went off the air Matt Taven laid out Dalton Castle in the middle of the ring whilst Marseglia and O'Ryan dealt with The Boys. Taven says he's the next World Champion...

The commentators don't even try to explain what qualifies Titus and Ferrara for a title shot. The Machine Guns survived the challenge of the Best Friends at Final Battle, but enter a new year as champions knowing that the Briscoes are now leading the contendership charge in their direction. They'll want to build some early momentum with a convincing win over The Dawgs. Cheeseburger is on commentary for this, which may serve as a distraction for his great rival Ferrara in particular.

Ferrara's big mouth gets him in trouble early, with him walking into a running punt from Sabin. Through-the-legs tope suicida nailed as we go into an extremely early commercial break. During the break Will struck back with a tornado DDT off the apron to Sabin - and we rejoin with them in the midst of their bickering big brother/little brother comedy offence routine. Shelley lands a back suplex on Ferrara...but can't make a tag because Rhett drags his partner off the apron. Big Dawg Splash misses though and Sabin does get a tag moments later. Flying rana on Titus, but Little Willy blocks Cradle Shock. Yakuza Kick by Rhett, only for Sabin to block the All Seeing Eye into the Dream Sequence. ASCS Rush on Ferrara, then the Double Rubix Cube. Machine Guns retain at 04:53 (shown).

Rating - * - I don't understand why this needed to be a title match. The Dawgs shouldn't have been challengers in the first place, and where do they go from here now that they've been comprehensively crushed by the champs, in less than five minutes? Shelley and Sabin didn't even reach the higher gears here. In the right environment The Dawgs are pretty fun to watch. Here they were taken behind the proverbial barn and shot between the eyes - with a match which was inconsequential, insubstantial and totally forgettable.

The Briscoes come onto the stage to congratulate the Tag Champions. Jay once again says that he and his brother are coming for the Machine Guns and that nobody can stop them...

In the locker room SoCal Uncensored hand Shane Taylor a pay-off. They want him to keep Bullet Club away because they have some 'business' to attend to. 

Kenny King complains about his attack at the hands of Silas, Bruiser and Milonas. It won't stop him coming for the TV Title though.

The Philadelphia fans really haven't taken to Woods. His mere entrance is met with a mixture of indifference and loud booing. It's a shame because he improved consistently as 2017 went along. He lost to Gresham in a pre-show match before Final Battle so is looking for some revenge this evening.

Josh uses his size and tries to bully Gresham in the early going. The Octopus recognises he is out-matched, so starts picking apart a leg to keep The Goods on the ground. The precision of his work is such that throwing a single kick is enough to have Woods dropping to the ground in pain. He hooks Woods out of the ring after the commercial break - and crumples his injured leg under him with a successful pescado. Jumping knee strike by Woods to block a missile dropkick...knocking Gresham loopy but obviously injuring Woods too. He follows with a slingshot knee strike then rolling deadlift gutwrench suplexes...into a gutwrench powerbomb for 2. Running knee strike nailed but then Gresham counters a Chaos Theory into a dragon screw. Quebrada scores, setting up a bridging cradle pin - and Gresham scores another victory in the exact manner that he did at Final Battle. 06:09 (shown).

Rating - ** - Conceptually this was a good match. Jon Gresham was, as he so often is, extremely good. For a six minute TV filler match there was fun to be had here. But Josh Woods' selling was dire. Gresh spent the whole match working his knee. It really shouldn't take much working out, therefore, that your big fiery comeback shouldn't consist entirely of knee strikes and other spots which heavily rely on both your legs working well. I swear the crowd even started booing Josh's failure to properly put over how good Gresham's work on the leg actually was.

COLEMAN'S PULPIT - This week Caprice is with Coast 2 Coast. The discuss their pending make or break tag bout, which will see them disband if they lose again. They don't want to break up, but also don't want to take up a roster spot if they can't get the job done. Shaheem is confident that they will win...but that is before Caprice breaks the news that their opponents are War Machine...

Up next Cody enters the 2300 Arena to break his silence after losing the World Title. He concedes that Dalton Castle was the better man at Final Battle...but promises he will be taking up his contractually obligated rematch sometime soon. Matt Taven interrupts to accuse him of needing to ride Bullet Club coat-tails and complains about being looked over for title shots. In response Cody says his hair gets bigger pops than Taven...so Matt kicks him in the balls. 

Well this should be fun. The Bucks hold recent Six-Man Title defence victories over both of the other teams in the match tonight - beating Team CMLL and Flip Gordon at Final Battle, and the Best Friends and Rocky Romero in Florida (with Kenny Omega standing in for Hangman). But we know how wild and unpredictable these six men can be. A winner here will join the Briscoes as one of the top contenders for the ROH Tag Titles.

Titan and Taylor start off with some thunderous chops. Titan back flips into a satellite headscissors, but tries a springboard and flies right into a dropkick from Chuckie. Duelling springboard lucha armdrags from Nick and Dragon...ending with Nick busting out a rope run TWISTING lucha armdrag! Lee isn't impressed and retaliates with a slingshot dropkick in the corner. Standing Shiranui from Matt to Titan! Pop-up rana on Taylor! Rise Of The Terminator topes by the Bucks. THROUGH THE LEGS TOPE CON HILO BY DRAGON! SPRINGBOARD MOONSAULT INTO THE CROWD BY TITAN! BEST FRIEND TOPE ATOMICOS! SUPERKICKS by the Bucks to stop the Best Friends f*cking around. Nick tries a frankensteiner...but finds it countered into a Ghetto Stomp by Lee. German suplex from Beretta to Matt, soon followed by the Gobstopper Knee. SOLE FOOD/HALF NELSON SUPLEX COMBO! The Friends follow it with the Lawn Dart Cutter for 2. Moonsault off the apron by Nick, but he turns his back and eats the RUNNING RANA TO THE FLOOR by Dragon! He tops that with a reverse rana on Trent, setting up a springboard frog splash by Titan for 2. Matt and Chuck work together to beat up the luchadors...and they hug it out as the fans chant 'new Best Friends'! It's a con! Matt shakes Chuck's hand! SUPERKICK FLURRY! Titan ducks and causes Matt to kick his own brother. Lee tries another running rana to the floor...NICK POWERBOMBS HIM INTO THE APRON! Quebrada by Titan...ROLLED THROUGH BY MATT! ROPE RUN SOMERSAULT PLANCHA BY NICK! MELTZER DRIVER! Matt pins Titan to win at 10:34

Rating - **** - Crazy, spectacular, weird...and undeniably entertaining. Dragon Lee and Titan brought a really different vibe to this. The Bucks and the Friends brought the usual mix of laughs and highspots - but with masks on the luchadors can't necessarily connect with audiences in the same way. They had to use their raw athleticism and spectacular acrobatics...and they were fantastic. Titan is a real spitfire and Dragon Lee is an incredibly classy junior heavyweight worker. The best parts of this match were when one of the CMLL guys would end a Buck/Best Friend joke spot with something outrageously violent or dangerous. A hell of a match to give away for free on television.

SCU hit the ring to spoil the celebrations. Daniels and Kaz attack the knees of the Bucks until Hangman Page runs out swinging a chair at them...

Tape Rating - ** - A little bit of a step down from the last two weeks, but still a decent episode. ROH has changed up their TV formatting a little for 2018 and seem to be utilising more backstage segments, locker room scenes and the like. It means there's a little more talking and less wrestling - but makes the product far less sterile than having guys deliver 30-second sound bites in front of a generic background. To give more credit, the product feels a lot tighter and very much geared towards setting up challengers for all the titles. We know that Martinez, Scurll, Lethal, Cody and Taven all want World Title shots. The Briscoes, the Bucks, The Bouncers and the Kingdom want the Tag Titles, SCU and The Kingdom want the Six-Man Titles and we are heading towards a Silas/Kenny TV Title rematch too. All of those bases were touched again on this show...plus the main event was a spectacular ten minutes of athletic, contemporary professional wrestling.