McXal's Reviews

It is around here that ROH starts to run into a few problems. They'd initially planned to have a final weekend of live shows AFTER the Honor United/Experience/Unauthorized run which presumably would have featured the final round of materials to promote Final Battle. But after cancelling those events (Survival Of The Fittest 2019 weekend in Texas) they now need to make sure content from The Experience and Unauthorized goes a lot further as we count-down to the year-ending pay-per-view. Over the next four weeks of television we'll be seeing plenty of matches clipped from those two shows, but also a greater number of 'TV-exclusive' bouts as ROH seeks to pad out its hours of television. The feature match this evening is the Six-Man Title defence pitting Villain Enterprises (featuring Dan Maff) against Jeff Cobb, Colt Cabana and Cheeseburger. Quinn McKay and Ian Riccaboni host...

Taped at 'The Experience 2019, this was originally this was going to be a tag match featuring the current and three former World Champions, but TV Champion Shane Taylor replaced Jay Lethal when the latter was injured during Honor United weekend. Fans voted to 'pick the partners' here; Rush and Taven on opposite sides with fans having to vote on which side Taylor and Castle would be on. The result is that Dalton teams with Taven, two men whom ROH have acknowledged are friends in real life. Neither man likes Rush either and have both spent the majority of 2019 unsuccessfully plotting ways to end the current World Champ's undefeated streak. Taven is working through a broken ankle apparently and has both Marseglia and O'Ryan in his corner once again.

Taylor goads Taven, having apparently broken his nose in Bolton (the amount of injuries coming out of that UK tour is crazy), even as Matt demands he be allowed to start with Rush instead. Taven and Castle try to piss the TV Champion off by repeatedly tagging in and out without locking up. They kill two minutes of the match with that routine leaving Shane with steam coming out of his ears. Eventually Taylor walks out and unleashes Rush...and Taven has to desperately pull Dalton to safety as the champ almost beats him with Bull's Horns again! The knock the champions to the floor and deliver a Heat Seeking Missile/tope suicida combo, followed by Castle's tiger feint headscissors off the apron. But Matt blows out his bad ankle landing on his feet when Rush avoids the Aurora Borealis...and immediately El Toro Blanco starts attacking it. Taylor does the same; even the most basic of moves having a devastating effect when performed by a man of Shane T's size. In fact both of the champions do a great job of destroying Taven's ankle, modifying even the most basic of moves to ensure they damage the injury. It means that even when Matt hits a spinning heel kick his only option is to crawl into a hot tag to Castle. GERMAN SUPLEX ON TAYLOR! LEG-SELLING Just The Tip! Taven hobbles to the floor and batters Rush into the guardrails...but inside the ring Shane knocks Dalton out with a headbutt! Greetings From 216 wins it for the TV Champion at 10:55

Rating - *** - Post-Gabe ROH's aversion to longer matches can be frustration, and this is a great example of why. It was a fine tag team match; all the big personalities looked like they had fun, we saw some solid wrestling and the person with the most to gain from victory won the match. But we barely glimpsed what were some pretty unique tag team dynamics between unfamiliar team-mates. We hardly had time for any drama to build up around Taven's ankle injury either. Considering they were only wrestling for eleven minutes, Dalton and Taven wasting the first two minutes doing nothing more than tagging in and out feels unforgiveable.

A video package promotes Bateman, who has been causing havoc at assorted ROH live events. 

This is a television exclusive, taped in Pittsburgh at The Experience. Draper comes into this fresh from winning the Top Prospect Tournament at Death Before Dishonor Fallout, and is now in preparation for his TV Title shot (which I believe was also scheduled for Survival Of The Fittest weekend). It would be a real step back for him if he lost to the lowest-ranked member of the Shinobi Shadow Squad...

Draper hands Nova a participation ribbon and suggests he leaves 'before he gets hurt'. Nova reacts badly but Dak dusts off his initial offensive flurry and throws him out of the ring like garbage. Back inside he delivers a stalling gutwrench suplex, followed by an attempt at a stalling vertical suplex as well. Ryan escapes it, dodges a knee drop...only to be cleaned out with a lariat. Draper Bomb blocked with a running knee strike for 2. Dak has to block an armbar, which he does by delivering a big powerbomb. Magnum KO wins it for Draper at 04:36

Rating - * - I would have liked this to have been a little more one-sided if they were going for an authentic squash match experience. Nova isn't at the level where I have much investment in him as a singles wrestler and I wasn't buying his thigh-slap laden offence as any kind of threat to Draper. 

Brian Zane gives a Top 5 Final Battle moment list (in chronological order). 

Maff was selected by ROH's Board Of Directors to replace the injured Brody King, meaning he will make his first appearance in Ring Of Honor since March 2005 (Back To Basics, coincidentally in a match also featuring Colt Cabana). His comeback was already booked as he was scheduled to wrestle PCO at Unauthorized the following night, and it will be interesting to see how the Villains react to having him forced upon them as a partner. On the recent UK tour Marty was able to appoint Brody King's successor himself (appointing Colt Cabana to partner PCO in the Newport main event)...so it's odd that he wasn't permitted to do the same here. The challengers were voted on by the fans. Given that PCO is #1 contender for the World Title, something Jeff is desperate to hold, the Hawaiian Juggernaut may well single him out as a target...

No Code Of Honor from the Villains or Maff, which is at least decent continuity since when Maff was last here he was in The Prophecy. Scurll and Cabana start for their teams, picking up where they left off at Death Before Dishonor with an easily watchable blend of smooth wrestling and crowd-pleasing buffoonery. Marty demands to wrestle a fellow 'heavyweight'...so Colt walks past Cobb and unleashes Cheeseburger. That pisses Scurll off so much that he tags out to bring PCO in. The #1 contender ignores Burger's offence and batters him back to the corner, before tags again so Maff and Cobb can take to the ring. The big men collide like bulls, but Cobb has a speed advantage so starts delivering illusive strikes. Since Maff won't go down all three challengers charge in - Colt and Jeff launching CB into a Stunner. He tries to climb onto Dan with a sleeper...so Maff CANNONBALLS INTO THE CORNER with Burger still on his back! PCO forcibly tags the former Tag Champion Maff out, much to the annoyance of the Era Of Honor Begins veteran. Instead the Villains take turns working over Burger, before eventually losing control of him and allowing a tag to Cabana. Maff and PCO jostle for position trying to attack Cabana, but then Colt knocks them both down with the moonsault press. Cobb tries to suplex PCO only for the veteran to back flip out of it! Back body drop somersault plancha by Scurll and PCO! Marty wants to hit a dive too, but then Maff stops him so he can instead hit a BIG MAN TOPE SUICIDA! Chokeslam from PCO to Cobb gets 2. The Olympian absolutely DECKS Marty with a big elbow to block the Chickenwing then climbs the ropes for a DEAD-LIFT SUPERPLEX ON F*CKING MAFF! Bionic Elbow/standing moonsault combo by Colt and Jeff gets 2. Shotei COUNTERED to the half nelson suplex by The Villain...who drags Burger to the apron and orders PCO to the top. But PCO crumples off the top rope and eats the apron whilst Cabana pulls Burger to safety. ATHLETIC-PLEX from Cobb to PCO! SHOTEI FLURRY! PCO ignores them all, then grabs all three opponents for a DOUBLE CHOKESLAM/TOMBSTONE PILEDRIVER! PCO-SAULT! But Maff has blind-tagged PCO out. He picks Burger up for the BURNING HAMMER! Maff wins, pinning down PCO as he pins Burger at 16:41

Rating - **** - That feels like a generous 4* rating, but its worth pointing out that this was the only match at The Experience which consistently drew any kind of reaction from the small live crowd. They produced a lively blend of comedy, good wrestling, neat set-ups for some fun big man spots featuring Cobb, PCO and Maff, and did a decent job putting together some build for the PCO/Maff bout at Unauthorized 2019. For the most part PCO was managed well too; by that I mean he was presented like a destroyer capable of crushing all in his path - which is critical given that he is heading to the main event of Final Battle.

Tape Rating - N/A - Light on new content for Honor Club members (unless you really like Dak Draper or Ryan Nova), but for those that don't watch the VOD's this was a strong episode. The Rush/Taylor vs Taven/Castle tag was a solid TV bout, the main event was very entertaining and the clear focus of the broadcast was presenting PCO as a legitimate threat to the World Championship.