McXal's Reviews

We have two weeks to go until Final Battle, and once again are dipping into a batch of footage taped at The Experience/Unauthorized weekend. This broadcast features a big-hitting TV-exclusive tag team fourway, then a feature main event pitting CMLL veteran Ultimo Guerrero against Kenny King, PJ Black and Eli Isom. Quinn McKay and Ian Riccaboni are our hosts for the broadcast.

Silas Young tries to get Josh Woods for their match, but finds 'The Goods' hunched against a wall 'visualising' their success...

Ian Riccaboni talks about the batch of exciting young tag teams we've seen over the last few months; listing the likes of Schadenfreude, Master & Machine, The Brat Pack, SOS and more. It serves to pile the pressure onto C2C - who were once considered a rising star team but have spent all year spinning their wheels without much success. SOS and the 'Young Woods' team have found wins easier to come by. Josh Woods was an unexpected star of the Global Wars Espectacular Tour as he spearheaded his team with Silas going 3-0 over the weekend. They have deep issues with The Bouncers though, thanks to Silas' part in Vincent's vicious attack on Bruiser in Milwaukee in the lead-in to the crazy Bar Room Brawl at Death Before Dishonor.

Woods starts with St. Giovanni and uses his superior wrestling skill to dominate that first minute. Young does the same thing with Ali - but gets slapped from behind by Milonas and forced onto the apron by The Bouncers who obviously still resent him. Shaheem tries to hit a few kicks on Bruiser instead...only to be resoundingly dropped to the mat with a powerbomb. BCB tries to do his stupid 'I ain't got no teeth' routine but in doing so turns his back on Moses & Kaun who storm the ring and pummel him to the ground. When we return from commercials the Soldiers are still brutalising Bruiser, albeit not for long before BCB blocks a double chokeslam with a double DDT and edges his way into the tag to Milonas. He fights everyone in the ring with ease, and delivers the Kingpin Senton on Kaun for 2. Killer Combo Knee Strike by Silas and Woods gets 2 on LSG! Josh holds his own in a fist-fight with both members of SOS...so they decimate him with their version of a 3-D. Brawler jumps off the apron to wipe out the Soldier, and Ali flies out as well with a somersault plancha. ROPE WALK SENTON TO THE FLOOR by St. Giovanni! Beer City Bruiser has been inspired to try a dive as well, only to be intercepted on the top by Woods. SUPERPLEX TO THE FLOOR ONTO EVERYONE! Josh pretty much dropped Bruiser on his neck then! Chaos Theory gets 2 on Kaun, Ali making the save and hitting Paydirt on The Goods. Bossman Slam by Milonas! Beer City DDT from Bruiser to Moses! Anarchist Suplex from Silas to LSG...bringing him face to face with Bruiser for the first time. SOS break them up mere seconds into their fist-fight unfortunately, to hit the double chokeslam on BCB! Coast 2 Coast knock Milonas out of the match, turning their back on Woods as he sneaks in to deck Ali with a back suplex. Catapult knee strike on LSG! Woods pins LSG to win at 12:40 (shown)

Rating - *** - A better match than it had any right to be. Before the commercial break it was a little predictable, but after the break business really picked up. You had SOS & The Bouncers almost trying to one-up each other with marauding big man mayhem, C2C delivering the fast-paced high spots alongside some outstanding wrestling from Woods and Silas. The superplex to the floor spot was like something ripped out of a 2002 Scramble Match (in the best way).

Shane Taylor has a look of disgust on his face as he visualises Rush & Dragon Lee's dream Final Battle moment of them both leaving the PPV with championships. But he proclaims that vision nothing more than a fantasy - because he'll put Dragon down at Final Battle like every other challenger.

A great video package airs next, documenting the journey that Dalton Castle and Joe Hendry have been on together. It ends on an ambiguous note, the jury still very much out on whether their attempts to form a tag team will be a success.

With Kelly Klein (and the WOH World Title) now out of the picture after Honor United, it leaves the rest of the division in even more of a rudderless mess than it was before. Rose and Sakai do have an ongoing issue with The Allure though, since they too - like Klein - have suffered repeated attacks at the hands of Leon and Love, and want to put them out of Ring Of Honor. They get the opportunity to do just that this evening, with no rules to stop them. This was taped at Unauthorized 2019.

Sumie and Jenny jump The Allure during their entrance, beating them both to the ground before they can even make the ring. Inside the ring they deliver the absolute worst 'double clothesline' I may have ever seen to get a two-count on Mandy. Angelina saves with a chair, setting Leon up for the Panic Attack on Rose. Mandy tries to throttle Rose with a metal chain, taking her out of action. The Allure then hilariously mis-time a double dropkick to Sumie (Leon hitting her move about a week after Angelina did). Sakai clearly wasn't impressed either, since she no-sells that and pulls out a Hiromu Takahashi/Daryl-inspired stuffed cat. She beats on The Allure with the cat, who bump around for a stuffed toy. FISHERMAN BUSTER ON A CHAIR! Angelina shows her toughness by kicking out at 2, whilst Rose drags Leon up the stairs for a suplex on the stage. Sakai looks for a moonsault...but misses and flies into a chair. Meanwhile Jenny SPEARS Mandy on the stage, presumably ending her night. Botox Injection on Sakai gives Love the win at 05:44

Rating - ** - The stuff with the cat was stupid, and there were some AWFUL timing issues on a couple of double-team spots, but actually this was one of the better Allure matches of 2019. There were some really big bumps and hard hits and we got an actual clean finish. Obviously that typifies just how low The Allure (and the booking of the entire WOH division) have set the bar in 2019, but this was actually pretty decent.

Angelina appears to want to cut a Hulk Hogan promo...but Maria Manic's music hits and she marches right into the ring. She steals Angelina's microphone and tells her she is 'dead' at Final Battle. 

This was taped at The Experience 2019. For someone like Isom, it could be the biggest night of his career if he was able to defeat a tenured veteran like Guerrero or Black...and he does have previous form in pulling off upset victories in multi-man matches. Footage capturing Kenny and Amy Rose in mysterious discussions with Rush had aired by this point, so there is already some intrigue as to what they are planning...

Ultimo's mullet is looking particularly spectacular this evening. It looks like tornado rules for this and it's Eli who tries to start the party by attacking everyone. Very quickly that descends into a four-man submission spot. Guerrero absolutely DECKS Eli with a baseball slide knocking him hard from the apron to the floor. Isom's solution is to buddy up with PJ; working together to clear the ring of both King and Ultimo. Kenny levels Black with the Chin Checker...before Eli dives onto all three opponents with a big crossbody. He hits a sweet spinning back suplex on Kenny too, before flowing smoothly out of the ring with a springboard moonsault to the floor. Kenny King vanishes from the action, runs off through the crowd and reappears on the stage. HUGE STAGE DIVE TO THE FLOOR! Amy Rose crotches PJ as he tries to attack King, yet as he hangs in a tree of woe he still finds a way to deliver a German suplex on Eli which drags Kenny into a superplex as well. Guerrero Special gets 2. Black DDT's Isom and hits The Wildness to win at 09:23

Rating - ** - The positives here were firstly, Kenny King's wild dive off the stage and secondly, that Eli Isom was at the heart of the match. He has plenty of potential and will only improve by being in the ring with experienced wrestlers as he was here. But whilst wisdom and experience come with age, so does a degeneration of your natural athletic gifts - and that was really on display with PJ and Ultimo here. There were points where it felt like they were running through quicksand. 

A video montage at the end of the show confirms that two grudge matches; Haskins vs Bully Ray and Taven vs Vincent have been added to the Final Battle 2019 card (alongside Taylor vs Lee, Briscoes vs Lethal/Gresham and Rush vs PCO).

Tape Rating - N/A - This episode was broadcast over Thanksgiving 2019 weekend, so it is understandable that ROH didn't go guns blazing with high profile bouts on a week when many fans aren't going to watch anyway. It was actually the TV exclusive match which was by far the highlight of the episode this week; don't sleep on that Tag Team four-way as it was considerably more fun than you might suspect. The Hendry/Castle video package was really well done too, and with Final Battle in mind it was good to get that Maria/Angelina segment on television as we build towards Maria's long-overdue in-ring debut.