McXal's Reviews

Into the final quarter of the year we go. Before we get to new televised content taped in the aftermath of Death Before Dishonor, we have one more week to spend inside the 2300 Arena. Things may get violent in the main event, with the Fight Without Honor stipulation broken out for the first time in ages to settle a long-standing rivalry between Cheeseburger and Will Ferrara. If that doesn't strike your fancy the undercard features a return to action for Coast 2 Coast in tag action, plus the rematch between Marty Scurll and Shane Helms. Ian Riccaboni and BJ Whitmer are on commentary in Philadelphia, PA.

Straight into the action, with the return to action of Coast 2 Coast after Shaheem Ali missed a few months of action through injury. Matt Taven is competing in Mexico, meaning his Kingdom stable-mates are left to fight for status and position in the tag division without him. Despite going relatively under the radar, before Ali's injury C2C were having a really strong year with high profile wins over multiple big name teams. Will that continue, or will the lost time thanks to Shaheem's injury derail the impressive young duo.

Marseglia immediately throws LSG out of the ring...then has to watch as he obliterates O'Ryan with a knee smash on the outside. Shaheem joins his partner in the ring to smear Vinny into the ground with a couple of double teams as well. All four battle inside the ropes now and it all gets a little scruffy - albeit with C2C's quickness and athleticism still giving them the edge. After the commercials we see Vinny emerging from under the ring and grabbing Ali's bad neck to give him a neckbreaker on the floor. The Kingdom start viciously working over the injury, with Marseglia diving into a headbutt right into the back of that neck. Neck vice by Vinny which, to give due credit, Shaheem does an awesome job selling. He finally breaks free with a jawbreaker and gets the hot tag to St Giovanni. Saint-splosion blocked by Marseglia for the Sam Hane strikes in the corner. Tope suicida by O'Ryan! NECK-SELLING pescado by Ali! Springboard corkscrew senton to the outside by Marseglia too. It leaves LSG the last man standing - climbing the ropes for the ROPE WALK SOMERSAULT SENTON TO THE FLOOR! Inside the ropes Ali counters the Mustang Ride into a victory roll - and wins at 10:03 (shown).

Rating - ** - This was a match of two extremes. At its best it was really good; The Kingdom working the neck, which was brilliantly sold by Ali. But at worst it was messy, chaotic and sloppy...plus everything before the commercial break was straight up dull. I'm still waiting to see what the hook is with Coast 2 Coast. They've gone from guys who hit a few spots and lose matches in 2017...to guys who hit a few spots and win matches in 2018. That isn't progression - by 2018 fans are smarter than just getting into an act because they win or lose. 

The Kingdom protest the result by attacking job guys and the referee. Apparently the ref didn't correctly identify who the legal men were at the finish - furthering their claims of a Kingdom Conspiracy...

Last time around The Villain used nefarious tactics to overcome the superhero. Still smarting from his failure to win the World Title at Best In The World, Scurll broke Helms' fingers in the locker room then used a low blow to defeat him in the ring. Apparently The Hurricane has been petitioning ROH officials to bring him back for a rematch - and here it is. 

Scurll offers a handshake to Helms...which is obviously an evil scheme - the match begins with him gouging Hurricane's eyes through his mask. Big suplex nailed for the Superhero, before Marty blocks the Hurri-Chokeslam. He scores with a tornado DDT...which is no sold heroically by Shane! Scurll drops him again with a lungblower, but again Hurricane gets right back up. Just Kidding drops him to his knees - but Helms no-sells again and does the same move back to The Villain. Running uppercuts by Marty drive him from the ring, into position for a Superkick from the apron then the HEAT SEEKING MISSILE! Scurll targets the arm throughout the commercial break, rendering Shane unable to hit a suplex and setting up an emphatic counter into a Brainbuster for 2. And still Helms won't stay down. PUMPHANDLE GHOSTBUSTER! He has won matches with that move but it's only good enough for two on this occasion. Scurll tries to go for a tornado DDT off the apron...only for Helms to COUNTER into the RVD/Jerry Lynn northern lights suplex on the floor! It's a major counter-strike which brings Helms right back into the bout. Kanyon-style Flatliner gets 2...only for Scurll to batter him with a RAINMAKER! He is sending a message to Okada even in the midst of battle with The Hurricane it seems. Helms counters the Chickenwing by battering The Villain against the ringpost. Super Neckbreaker countered to a superplex by Scurll! Low blow on Helms. EYE OF THE VILLAIN gets 2! Hurri-Chokeslam nailed! That's 2 as well. Vertebreaker blocked...La Magistral by Scurll blocked. Helms cradles Marty and snatches a win at 09:49 (shown).

Rating - *** - I don't understand the way Marty was being booked at this point. He seemed destined for the World Title at Best In The World and had heaps of momentum going into that...but they had Castle go over and pulled a swerve to put the belt on Lethal on TV instead. Then they had him go over Helms...then sent him to the UK where he looked extremely commanding (including a win over Jay Briscoe). But now we come back and he is derailed again by dropping the rematch to Hurricane - plus the (admittedly understandable and completely out of ROH's control) loss to Okada at All In too. Do they want to push him into the main event or not? This 50/50 booking, half-in/half-out mentality doesn't work for me. He does have chemistry with Helms though. I thought the first match in Fairfax was mildly less silly, and therefore probably a little better...but here they had a LOT more fun with the Hero vs Villain concept, which is basically the main hook for the rivalry. Presumably we'll be getting another instalment which, perhaps surprisingly, I'm not averse to.

Cheeseburger laments the loss of his friendship, his brotherhood and his team with Will Ferrara. He wanted to make it to the top alongside Will...now instead he is going to enjoy hurting him in the main event tonight...

Is it too mean to say that this is surely the low point of the once-notorious 'Fight Without Honor' gimmick? These two were a tag team, but struggled to climb the ranks creating tension between them. Ferrara eventually snapped and turned on Burger, leading to a series of violent assaults and the formation of The Dawgs with Rhett Titus (whom accompanies Will to ringside but is sent to the back, such is the intensity between these two). Both competitors enters this one looking to put their opponent out of ROH permanently.

No lock-ups of course; they charge across the ring throwing punches from the off. Will bails to avoid the Shotei so instead Burger hurls himself into a pescado and pummels him on the outside. It turns out Ferrara wore two belts to the ring though, and he unbuckles one to start flogging his rival with. He tries to hang Cheese using the belt too only for Burger to counter with a back suplex. He takes his turn to lash Little Willy with the leather belt, leaving him writhing with pain on the canvas. He tries to throttle Ferrara into submission...but Ferrara brilliantly counters by snapping his Shotei-throwing hand against the turnbuckle bolt! Burger tries a Shotei anyway...BLOCKED WITH A CHAIR! That hand may be shattered...so Cheese uses his feet instead and superkicks the same chair into Ferrara's face. With Ferrara still reeling he drops him with a DDT on the chair as well. Burger tries to get a table out from under the ring, but struggles due to his broken hand...and is that steamrolled from behind by Rhett Titus coming back to ringside. Titus tries to powerbomb him through the table...but out come Eli Isom and Ryan Nova! SUPERKICK BOMB through the table by Burger, Nova and Isom! Cheese wraps metal chain around his broken hand. CHAIN-WRAPPED SHOTEI! Burger wins at 09:28 (shown)

Rating - *** - Why they couldn't have just made this a No DQ, No Holds Barred or Street Fight to avoid sullying the 'Fight Without Honor' name confuses me somewhat. This was, however, a far better match than I expected. All the work around Burger's Shotei hand was awesome, whilst the big finish, including Burger overcoming both of The Dawgs and preluding the Shinobi Shadow Squad made complete sense in the context of everything that led to this. It also marks, as of writing anyway, the end of Ferrara's career as an ROH in-ring regular. He worked the Jericho Cruise, and makes sporadic appearances in the future, but now spends most of his time on the staff and training in the Dojo. 

Tape Rating - *** - Like last week, it was an episode heavy on in-ring content which is never a bad thing. But, as with the other three episodes from this taping, there really wasn't much worth going out of your way to see either. The tone of this entire taping has been too complacent for my liking. At no point did we see anything approaching the 'best wrestling in the world' mantra which ROH somewhat disingenuously promotes itself as. In a tough spot with the timing of All In, all of these episodes have felt like Ring Of Honor just chucking any old content on television. It's like the MSG sell-out convinced officials that the brand really is what people are paying for, so it doesn't matter if they chuck an entire PPV card together in the space of a week. Or half-ass an entire TV taping but know the live crowd will be happy because they get a Young Bucks spotfest and Jay Lethal busting his ass. Or denigrate literally an ENTIRE promotion/tournament/web-series by feeding Dojo Pro winner Aaron Solow into a squash match with Martinez. As with so much of 2018 ROH, in isolation the quality on this episode or at this taping isn't terrible. But the utter lack of effort, lack of long-term vision and total abandonment of the core principles upon which ROH built its reputation has been in motion for a long-time and now has Ring Of Honor a long way down a bad path. Storm clouds were gathering on the horizon...

5) Shane Helms vs Marty Scurll (*** - Episode 368)

4) Christopher Daniels/Frankie Kazarian/Scorpio Sky vs Jay Briscoe/Mark Briscoe/Punishment Martinez (*** - Episode 365)

3) Cheeseburger vs Will Ferrara (*** - Episode 368)

2) Jay Lethal/Jonathan Gresham vs Bully Ray/Silas Young (*** - Episode 366)

1) Cody/Young Bucks vs Silas Young/The Bouncers (*** - Episode 367)