McXal's Reviews

We are ticking down to Final Battle at pace now. Opportunities to get onto the year-ending PPV card are expiring quickly, leaving a lot of guys scrapping for spots...and we'll see a number of them tonight. Can Josh Woods cause an upset by beating Jeff Cobb? Can Christopher Daniels concoct one last scheme to save his ROH career? Can Stuka Jr and Guerrero Maya Jr of CMLL throw Final Battle into chaos by winning the Tag Titles...just one week after reigning champions SCU challenged two other teams to a Final Battle Ladder War for those belts? Ian Riccaboni, Colt Cabana and special guest Marty Scurll provide commentary from Pittsburgh, PA.

This a big match between big names, neither of which are currently on the bill for Final Battle. Marty Scurll, confirmed as winner of the 2018 Survival Of The Fittest Tournament, is on commentary which could be significant. He recently lost a high profile televised bout to King, and has openly discussed wanting to face Christopher Daniels in a singles bout as well. With new contracts offered to the rest of SCU after they won the Tag Titles a few weeks ago, Daniels is now trying to find a way to save his own ROH career, as Joe Koff still plans to release him at the end of the year.

Kenny rips on Daniels for being old and wants to send him out of ROH with one last loss. In addition to his age, Daniels has his neck taped after the attack he suffered at the hands of the Briscoes in Philadelphia. He still starts the match by aggressively dumping Kenny into the guardrails, but is tripped off the apron and knocked to the floor himself moments later. Marty accuses Daniels of being all 'schtick' and catchphrases at this point in his career...which is pretty accurate sadly. King lands an inverted neckbreaker over the knee and a big lariat to jar Daniels' injured neck further. TKO over the knee next, followed by the capo kick right on the neck as well. Daniels hits a Blue Thunder Driver and then collapses in pain. Running STO scores and sets up a swinging gourdbuster...which King shuts down with his spinebuster for 2. Royal Flush countered to an urinage slam, only for King to trip the Fallen Angel as he lines up the BME causing him to clash heads with the referee. As Paul Turner recovers, King kicks Daniels in the balls and gives him the Royal Flush to win at 06:18 (shown)

Rating - ** - Christopher Daniels is an astonishing professional. He hasn't worked a great deal of high profile singles matches in 2018 and Scurll's suggestion that he is mostly gimmick and catchphrases wasn't wholly unfair. But seemingly without trying he just keeps going, defying age and still capable of the kind of effortless brilliance we saw in this. The way he sold his neck and conveyed real desperation to win the match was superb and really elevated what otherwise would have felt like a routine TV filler match. The shabby, unimaginative finish annoyed me, even taking into consideration that cheating to win has become Kenny King's gimmick right now. It felt cheap and I felt like the work he and Daniels put into the body of the match deserved a better conclusion.

Dalton Castle reaffirms that he came back to ROH to get the World Title back and is annoyed that he has already been sidetracked by Matt Taven. His 'rage' has been 'ignited' and he wants to end it at Final Battle 2018...

The TV Title isn't on the line here, but clearly a win for Woods would resuscitate his flagging ROH career and put him right into the title picture. This could be a hell of a wrestling match here given the extensive amateur credentials of both men. But Cobb has been on a tear through ROH since arriving and it feels like it would be a massive upset if 'The Goods' were to be the one to stop it.

As you'd expect the opening is intensively mat-focused...with Hangman Page appearing on the stage to scout Cobb ahead of Final Battle. He watches Woods attempt to expose an arm injury on the TV Champion; enjoying genuine success and nullifying Jeff's extreme power and unpredictable suplexing. Cobb eventually busts free and drops Josh with a capture suplex. Woods rids it and grabs the bad arm for a judo throw into an armbar. Cobb counters to an overhead suplex into the turnbuckles (kind of). TOUR OF THE ISLANDS! Cobb wins at 03:46

Rating - ** - It wasn't long and detractors of Josh Woods will, I'm sure, continue to criticise him here. However, I thought this was an intensely fun three minutes of wrestling. I loved the grappling, I loved the way Woods tackled the challenge of facing the 'Hawaiian Juggernaut' and I thought Cobb sold the arm in a brilliantly understated manner. They definitely showed enough to suggest they could do better under different circumstances. That won't be any time soon though as Woods goes on hiatus for several months after this taping. Riccaboni referenced on commentary that he has started focusing on his MMA career again, and after failing to gain any real momentum in professional wrestling will now take some time away to concentrate on BJJ...

Adam Page enters the ring and congratulates Jeff on his 'impressive' victory. He then demands Cobb leave the ring so he can show him how a 'real ass whipping' is done in his scheduled match...

So Page's mission here is clear. He wants to a statement victory over Facade to send a message to Cobb ahead of Final Battle. It is a major display of self-confidence but one that isn't without danger. 'The Neon Ninja' Facade is an enigmatic performer...but one with heaps of experience. Opportunities to wrestle members of the BTE cast on television don't come around often - he'll know he needs to grab this chance...

JIP with Page smacking Facade over the top rope and Cobb watching from the stage. SSP tackle from the apron to the floor nailed by Hangman. He carries Facade around the ring and pointedly stares at Cobb before delivering the stalling, bridging pumphandle suplex for 2. Facade starts flipping and nipping up entirely unpredictably - and eventually cartwheels into a kick to Page's chops. He tries a rope-walk dive next...straight into a mafia kick by Hangman. Avalanche fallaway slam skittles Facade across the ring leaving him with very little left in the tank. He tries to trade strikes and is almost decapitated with an elbow strike. DOUBLE SPRINGBOARD 450 PRESS to the floor! He misses a 450 back in though...right into the Buckshot Lariat. Rite Of Passage wins it for Page at 05:12 (shown).

Rating - * - Too long to be an effective squash and too one-sided to be any kind of effective platform for Facade to shine either. Facade is a really interesting performer but for the most part he was just a body for Page to crush here...meaning the fact that it took 5+ minutes to defeat him (against a back drop of Page promising to show Cobb how to kick someone's ass) felt more damaging than beneficial to Hangman's momentum.

Cobb heads back to the ring and gets into a heated stare-down with Page.

The finish to Survival Of The Fittest 2018 is shown, with Marty polishing Chris Daniels off to win the tournament. In the locker room Daniels congratulates Marty, but calls it unfair since Hangman was in the match as well to team up with The Villain. He says Scurll can't beat him 1-on-1...and challenges Marty to put his SOTF title shot on the line against him at Final Battle.

Jay Lethal gets a sit-down interview to talk about his upcoming title defence against Cody. In the two years since their first Final Battle showdown he has developed a begrudging respect for the American Nightmare...but refuses to allow him to take the World Title from him or stop him going to Madison Square Garden as champion.

Meanwhile Matt Taven pops in to accuse Castle of crumbling under the pressure of being World Champion and calls him a 'one-hit wonder'. He will demonstrate why he is the 'Real World Champ' at Final Battle 2018. 

The CMLL representatives are awarded a title shot after defeating SCU in trios action during State Of The Art 2018 weekend in Texas, which is at the very least an improvement on the total lack of logic which lead to the Super Smash Bros. getting a shot at Global Wars Toronto. Indeed, Stuka and Maya's performances in ROH rings have been deemed so impressive they were even selected as part of the Survival Of The Fittest 2018 tournament line-up too. SCU have challenged rivals the Young Bucks and the Briscoes to a decisive Ladder War at Final Battle...and seemingly earned themselves new ROH contracts at long last. It would be crushing to drop the belts to outsiders so soon into their reign...

Maya and Sky start with the reigning champion working extremely hard to keep the luchador grounded and unable to build up speed. Finally the masked man scores with a tilta-whirl backbreaker...then unleashes the bulky Stuka Jr who absolutely batters Sky to the ground. Kazarian has to force his way in and blast him with a spinning heel kick to silence him. It actually takes a couple of SCU double teams to really trouble Stuka...but in the time it takes for a commercial break we see the CMLL team exploding back with combo moves of their own. DOUBLE Mexican surfboard on Scorpio! Then a full nelson TWIST on Frankie when he tries to break it. Sky double stomps Stuka's back as Kaz dropkicks Guerrero in the corner. MOONSAULT TO THE FLOOR by Stuka! TOPE CON HILO THROUGH THE RAILING BY MAYA! Slingshot DDT back in by Kazarian, into the urinage/lungblower combo - apparently known as the Burning Heart - for the win on Stuka at 06:53 (shown)

Rating - *** - Awkward and a little ugly at points...but packing in enough fun during its brief run-time to at least make for an enjoyable main event. Kaz and Sky are comfortable and fluent as a duo despite (relatively) little experience as a two-man team in ROH and Stuka's bizarre mix of bulk and agility is always quite a spectacle. Forgettable and nothing worth going out of your way to see - but on a poor episode in terms of in-ring quality this was a little more substantial.

Christopher Daniels joins his victorious partners in the celebrations. He admits he has 'one match left' on his contract. He addresses Marty at the announce table and says he will 'go through' The Villain to save his spot in the company he helped build. Scurll enters the ring and mocks him for his 'stupid three-letter catchphrase'...and promises to end his career at Final Battle.

NEXT WEEK - Jay Lethal, Cody and Dalton Castle face mutual enemies The Kingdom...

Tape Rating - ** - The card ROH are building out for Final Battle looks REALLY good. Not necessarily brimming with great angles or must-see storylines, but a really good WRESTLING card. That comes at the cost of almost sidelining good in-ring content for the TV show, as so much time needs to be dedicated to hyping the pay-per-view. For example, whilst both Cobb and Page's matches on this show were barely relevant, the fact is that they framed some build to their really intriguing match at the PPV. Four matches is always FAR too much for ROH's 45-minute TV show and, for a company that prides itself on in-ring quality, it can't be great that the wrestling was actually the WORST part about this episode.