McXal's Reviews

We are now a week away from Final Battle, so tensions are presumably at fever pitch. Expect this broadcast to be heavy on promotional content for the final pay-per-view of the year (and what would actually turn out to be ROH's final PPV until December 2020)...but we do have a couple of rather intriguing television exclusives to check out as well. Ian Riccaboni is on hand to guide us through everything we need to know before we reach Final Battle...

The show opens with a recap of The Kingdom being stalked and repeatedly attacked backstage. At The Experience it was revealed that it was all an elaborate scheme devices by 'The Horror King' Vincent. He betrayed Taven and used his axe to leave the former World Champion a bloody mess. They are set to go to war at Final Battle.

In a segment which didn't air at Unauthorized, Mark Haskins comes to the ring to call out Bully Ray for being a chickensh*t. Bully begrudgingly comes out, but refuses to get into the ring with Haskins. Flip Gordon runs through the crowd to cane Haskins from behind; an extension of the Villain Enterprises vs Lifeblood feud of course, but Bully also hands him a wad of cash too (he is a Mercenary after all). Flip leaves Haskins laying, then walks out so Bubba can powerbomb him through a table. Bully calls Mark's wife and kids 'trash' and challenges him to a match at Final Battle.

Dalton Castle and Joe Hendry meet up to discuss their plans. Hendry calls their team a 'super-group', which isn't a term Castle fully understands, so decides they are going to have super-powers. 

This exclusive bout is a TV debut for Bateman, who made his first appearance at Death Before Dishonor Fallout (defeating Jake Atlas). Later that night he attacked Tracy Williams for unknown reasons, and he did the same again at The Experience to cost Hot Sauce his Last Man Standing Match with Flip. Now he comes to television looking to make a significant impact by overcoming world-renowned veteran, 'Darewolf' PJ Black.

Bateman starts the match by out-wrestling and out-striking PJ, forcing Black to go aerial. He knocks Tyler to the floor and takes him out with a pescado as we go into commercials. As soon as they return to the ring Bateman's unpredictable and somewhat sadistic violent streak comes to the fore again though. He continues beating on the Darewolf with strikes, but also makes odd deranged barking noises at the crowd, fish-hooks the mouth of his opponent and generally makes it a very difficult match to officiate. Black takes to the sky again, delivering a springboard heel kick then a big moonsault for 2. This Is A Kill blocked awkwardly on multiple occasions...so Bateman drills him with a northern lights bomb instead. Rope run frankensteiner lands for the Darewolf, into a second moonsault. Still he can't pin Bateman though - and he rolls away when PJ tries to set up the 450 Splash too. Bateman crotches Black going for The Wildness and muscles him out of the corner into This Is A Kill. It's a massive victory for the newcomer at 08:24 (shown)

Rating - * - There were some real positives to this, in particular the effort made to create a new star. Bateman was given a lot to work with here and made an impression; not only with his victory but also with some ferocious striking alongside his general mannerisms and persona. They really did NOT click as opponents though. This kind of match has been a struggle for PJ all year, because it relies on him being a fast-paced, exciting wrestler who can fight from underneath (like he used to be on WWE television)...but he simply can't wrestle that style anymore. Everything he did here was incredibly cumbersome. His Ring Of Honor run has produced some exciting moments, but he is no doubt an expensive talent and someone that I'd be looking to remove from the roster for fresh faces (like Bateman) in 2020...

Joe Koff meets with Silas Young and Josh Woods, looking to discuss some 'demands' Woods has made. He wants adjoining hotel rooms for he and Silas, earlier flights so they can 'bond over dinner'. Silas, of course, chastises Josh and tells him he still has a lot to learn about the wrestling business...

On the face of it this is another inexplicable Taylor title defence against an unsigned independent talent who really doesn't deserve the shot. But this one is clearly of interest because it marks the ROH TV debut of Danhausen, who would go on to become a cult favourite. It's also the first time that Shane Taylor Promotions has been acknowledged as including the Soldiers Of Savagery (who accompany Shane T to the ring).

The crowd is definitely into Danhausen, even in Taylor's home state. He starts in a wholly deluded manner though and fails spectacularly in trying to chokeslam the hefty TV Champion. He tries a headscissors off the apron next, but is POWERBOMBED into the apron as a counter. During commercials Dak Draper appears on the stage to scout Taylor, perhaps taking note of how Shane almost splits Danhausen's skull on the guardrails. Taylor is momentarily distracted by Draper's presence though, and in an instant Dan capitalises with a tornado DDT. He fills Shane's mouth with his jar of human teeth...then boots him clean in the face to shower the teeth everywhere. The unimpressed champion decimates Danhausen with a Package Piledriver and hits Welcome To The Land to retain the title at 05:35 (shown)

Rating - N/A - I wasn't sure how I could rate this as a match, but I'm also very clear that I enjoyed this as a segment so didn't want to mark it down as a 'bad match' by any means. It accomplished plenty in a relatively small amount of time; debuting Danhausen on TV well and giving him lots of opportunities to showcase his oddball character, almost nothing we saw here damaged Taylor's credibility at all (he looked completely dominant), and we also started integrating Draper onto the main roster. Compared to some of those previous (and totally bogus) squash title defences from Taylor, this was a breath of fresh air.

After the match Taylor returns to the locker room and turns his attention to Final Battle. Apparently he doesn't know who he is facing, which means whomever is editing this sh*t has made a TERRIBLE error given that they had Taylor on last week talking about his title defence against Dragon Lee (along with graphics advertising the f*cking match).

The show ends with a video package promoting Rush vs PCO for the World Title. It reviews some of their most spectacular and violent moments of 2019. 'Even monsters DIE' - Rush

Tape Rating - N/A - I appreciated that this was an entire episode of new content, with very little broadcast on this episode that had already been aired on a previous VOD. The match content wasn't great and I'm not sure that Danhausen goofing off is the best way to shill your biggest show of the year though. Trying to look at this objectively, I don't know how much this will have done to entice casual viewers to order the pay-per-view.