McXal's Reviews

Tonight on Ring Of Honor Wrestling, Bully Ray is once again inexplicably in a main event spot. He partners genuine rising stars Shane Taylor and TV Champion Punishment Martinez to face arguably ROH's biggest breakout star in Flip Gordon - alongside Cheeseburger and Josh Woods. Yeah, that hasn't sold me on the episode either - but Cagematch informs me I'm also getting Briscoes vs The Bouncers which could be fun, and we'll also see a new Women Of Honor Title #1 contender crowned. Ian Riccaboni and Colt Cabana once again welcome us to Fairfax, VA.

Bruiser and Milonas are now officially introduced as The Bouncers. It is completely unrelated to this match, but it really feels like ROH did absolutely nothing with Beer City Bruiser after he had a potentially career-making breakout weekend in Tokyo for the NJPW Honor Rising shows. He and 'Kingpin' Brian Milonas aren't the most aesthetically pleasing tag team around but they are two big dudes who like a fight. Therefore that places them right up the Briscoes' street as far as opponents go. The ROH Tag Titles aren't on the line tonight, but The Bouncers would clearly put themselves at the front of the queue if they could beat the champions.

Riccaboni calls Bruiser and Milonas 'journeymen' which makes an absolute mockery of the fact that both of these guys came into ROH on the back of a Top Prospect Tournament appearance. Milonas mauls Mark with raw size and power and actually drives the younger Briscoe out of the ring. The champs have to team up just to back Kingpin into the ropes. In doing so they turn their back on Bruiser, who bundles in and joins his partner for tandem body avalance attacks. Jay tries to hit a big dive on BCB...but walks into a big tackle from Milonas instead. He has to topple Brian over the top rope - then dives onto both of them with a somersault plancha. PHOENIX SPLASH TO THE FLOOR by Mark! Beer City crushes him with a Samoan drop - feeding him into a straps-down senton splash by Kingpin. Jay has to fight both Bouncers at once just to buy his brother some time to recover...and he dodges an attempted cannonball by Bruiser, leaving BCB out of it on the floor. Running DVD from Jay to Bruiser gets 2! BLOCKBUSTER OFF THE APRON from Mark to Milonas! Inside the ring his brother hits the Day One Neckbreaker. Froggy Bow on Bruiser wins it at 06:27 (shown)

Rating - *** - Perhaps I'm over-rating this one, but it pretty much ticked every box I was looking for them to hit. The Bouncers hit some fun big boy offence, the Briscoes bumped and sold for them extremely well - which in turn made Jay and Mark look extremely strong when they were able to sweep past such large opponents relatively comprehensively. One doesn't expect PPV quality bouts opening a free TV broadcast every week; this match was wholly fun televised wrestling in my book.

Jay gets on the mic and buries SoCal Uncensored - bringing Daniels, Kaz and Sky onto the stage to respond. Scorpio sends The Addiction into the ring for a brawl which has to be broken up by multiple crew members...

The winner becomes #1 contender to Sumie Sakai's Women Of Honor Championship. It is a belt which Klein and Dashwood have chased since both of them were defeated by Sumie in New Orleans on the final night of the WOH Title Tournament. On the other end of the spectrum, Karen and Madison are still smarting from being on the receiving end of upset defeats in the first round of that tournament. Rayne was eliminated by Mandy Leon, whilst Q fell to Brandi Rhodes. In a pre-match promo Madison admits that she hasn't been able to transfer her success from other promotions into ROH, but wants to change that tonight. Can she call on her experience to get past the star-power of Tenille, the sheer power of Klein and the wrestling skill of Karen Q?

Karen walks out and leaves the other three to fight it out, with Rayne and Dashwood joining forces to dump Kelly out of the ring alongside her. Tenille and Madison trade holds a respectful competitiveness, only for Klein to haul Tenille to the floor whilst Q attacks Rayne from behind. Karen fires off strikes to the former SHIMMER Tag Champion before dumping her with an emphatic snap suplex. She takes her focus off Tenille though - allowing the Aussie to ensnare her in the Dilemma. Karen tries to give Dashwood a superplex, joined by Madison. Kelly joins the party, setting up a Tower Of Doom! Tenille landed brutally on that! She recovers quickly and starts fighting off all three opponents, driving them into opposing corners of the ring. Taste Of Tenille flurry! Klein scoops up both Karen and Madison to hit a fallaway slam/Samoan drop combo for 2. Dashwood launches her entire body off the top with a wild flying crossbody. Spotlight Kick nailed! But Karen tosses Tenille out of the ring and almost steals her pin! Klein kicks out at 2, but is effectively out of the match. BARBIE CRUSHER from Rayne to Q! Madison picks up the victory at 07:13 (shown).

Rating - ** - Being honest, of all the potential title matches to come out of this fourway Sakai vs Rayne was probably the one I wanted to see least. However, after criticising ROH for blowing chances to add legitimacy and properly set up Sumie's defences against Chardonnay and Hazuki I do appreciate that ROH have at least made an effort to build another challenger being fed to the champion. There was nothing wrong with this match at all. Karen was really fun as an asshole, slacker heel looking to profit from the hard work of others. Klein was like a Terminator - not heavily featured in the match but leaving bodies in her wake when she did appear. Tenille carried the heaviest load and, although her execution was a little sloppy, continues to have a connection with live crowds which other members of the WOH roster lack. The real problem was that this came off like an incredibly rushed sequence of spots with nothing holding it together and some pretty slack execution at times too. 

Cody enters the arena to address his recent failures to recapture the ROH World Championship - despite not being pinned in any of them and despite not getting a singles match. He teases bringing Burnard The Business Bear out...but instead Nick Aldis' music hits. The NWA Champion wants to know what Cody is willing to offer at All In, given that he failed to win the ROH Title. To show how serious Cody is, he hands Aldis the 'Ring' Of Honor. As Nick turns to leave, Cody gets deadly serious and reminds him that he is offering a chance to defend the title in front of 10,000+ paying fans, against a man who has beaten the likes of Kenny Omega (whilst Aldis beat a '53 year old history teacher' for his championship). The Young Bucks and Hangman Page come out to calm Cody down, whilst Nick's friend Marty Scurll arrives to settle the NWA Champion.

We know the issues between Bully, Flip and Cheeseburger. Since turning heel on Burger at Supercard Of Honor, Bubba has victimised them and tried to drive 'their kind' ('disrespectful young boys) out of Ring Of Honor. He massacred Burger in a No DQ Match on Episode 355, then went to Best In The World and violently assaulted Flip (after failing to beat him and resorting to kicking him in the balls to escape with a disqualification loss). Bully has formed something of an alliance with big hitters Shane Taylor and Punishment Martinez. The Punisher subsequently went on to become TV Champion - placing a target on his back for anyone looking for a shot at his title. Woods is the wildcard, brought in by Flip and Burger because he has beef with Shane Taylor. 

Bully attacks Flip during his entrance and cracks his skull against the ringpost. As a result he is carried to the locker room for medical help before the bell even rings. Fans want Colt Cabana to replace him, but instead we have a handicap match with Taylor refusing to start with Woods. Instead he gets to trade strikes with Martinez...eventually throwing the TV Champ back into his own corner with a German suplex. Taylor waits until Punisher has stomped The Goods into the mat before tagging...but finds Josh lying in wait to hit an exploder suplex. Bully tags and Cheeseburger immediately demands to be tagged in to face him. Burger counters Bubba's powerbomb but his only reward is getting illegally dumped off the top rope by Taylor. Shane then tackles Woods off the apron so he can't help Burger out either. Completely inexplicable tornado DDT from Cheese to Taylor! That was totally implausible - but its swiftly glossed over as Colt Cabana leaves commentary to replace Flip at last! He tags in and hits the Flying Asshole and a quebrada on Taylor. Spear on Bully! Burger hits a TERRIBLE double stomp on Bully, knocking him out of the ring. But Taylor is still legal! He hits Greetings From 216 on Burger to grab the win at 06:40 (shown)

Rating - DUD - More of the same from this angle. Bully gets himself over and nobody else. Legitimate guys who ROH could build the future of their company around like Martinez, Taylor, Flip are totally eclipsed by him and we're all held hostage by a gimmick which just isn't working. He isn't getting 'good' heat. He isn't getting anyone else over and - with all due respect to Colt - if the long-term goal was to get fans into Cabana why not just let him wrestle rather than put him out to pasture behind the announce desk anyway? This match was made even worse by some really awful-looking Cheeseburger offence on huge guys like Bully and Shane Taylor. I'm sure there are fans out there who like this - but the whole thing is a giant miss for me. 

Bully has Taylor and Martinez assault all their opponents, then starts flogging Cabana with a metal chain. Flip Gordon comes back armed with a chair - beating his way past Taylor and Punisher but unable to get to Bubba before the Hall Of Famer bails...

Tape Rating - ** - Comfortably the worst and most skippable of all the Fairfax Excellence episodes. BUT it isn't a total bust. Briscoes/Bouncers is a short, bruising, entertaining big man brawl and the Cody/Aldis segment to set up their All In bout was excellent. Clearly a decent TV undercard match and a promo setting up something which isn't even happening in ROH aren't enough to call this a 'good' episode by any stretch. But I've seen far worse. The main event was a real mess though...

5) Kagetsu/Hana Kimura vs Mayu Iwatani/Jenny Rose (*** - Episode 358)

4) Marty Scurll vs Shane Helms (*** - Episode 359)

3) Kushida vs Jonathan Gresham (*** - Episode 358)

2) EVIL/SANADA/BUSHI vs Christopher Daniels/Frankie Kazarian/Scorpio Sky vs Young Bucks/Adam Page (**** - Episode 359)

1) Dalton Castle vs Jay Lethal vs Matt Taven vs Cody (**** - Episode 357)