McXal's Reviews

Ring Of Honor's final live shows before Covid-19 sent the promotion into an extended hiatus took place at the end of February. With Free Enterprise in the books we are now counting down to those final two shows (Bound By Honor 2020 & Gateway To Honor 2020). On our path to that weekend we'll be checking out more action from Honor Reigns Supreme, including a main event which sees Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham team with Jeff Cobb and Dan Maff (who beat them at Free Enterprise) to face The Bouncers and 2 Guys 1 Tag (whom Lethal and Gresh defend against in Nashville). Quinn McKay and Ian Riccaboni welcome us to Concord, NC.

We begin with highlights of the exciting Bandido vs Alex Zayne match from Honor Reigns Supreme, which ended in something of an upset as Zayne emerged victorious in his ROH debut.

Joe Hendry and Dalton Castle are in a photo-shoot; Joe getting increasingly irritated at Dalton's bizarre directions. His comedic physical interpretations of Dalton's instructions ('act like you're an angry tree') are absolutely brilliant.

Next we catch up on the actions of Sumie Sakai, who turned heel by attacking Nicole Savoy in Atlanta. Highlights of the Sakai/Savoy rematch in Concord are shown, with Sumie cheating to win.

Brian Zane has another Top 5 - this time counting down his favourite five factions in company history. 

Williams was attacked twice by Bateman at shows in 2019 and then lost to him at Final Battle Fallout as well. He now recruits his Lifeblood tag partner Haskins, to face off with Vincent and Bateman who compete as a team for the first time. Lifeblood crossed paths with The Kingdom plenty in 2019 of course, so are no strangers to Marseglia...but he now appears to be a very different beast to the one we saw dutifully playing Matt Taven's 'Horror King' henchman last year.

Vincent and Bateman attack Lifeblood from behind, dumping Haskins to the floor so they can team up on Hot Sauce. Lifeblood quickly show their superior experience as a team though, working together to pick apart Bateman's leg and arm, rendering him immobile so they can go to work on Marseglia. 'Chuckles The Clown' (Vinny's goon at ringside) pulls his leader to safety before they can do any real damage though. Chuckles then gets into a fight with Tracy at ringside, distracting him until Vincent can deliver an Ace Crusher on the floor. Bateman in particularly relishes being able to isolate Williams, who works hard to stay in the match before finally blocking the Acid Drop and making a big tag. Haskins rocks Marseglia with an elbow suicida, but can't connect with Stomp Boy on the way back in. Vita VonStarr trips him from the floor, but can't stop Tracy hitting the turnbuckle DDT on Vincent. SOLDIER ROLL BOMB gets 2! Infusion Piledriver on Vincent, right before Chuckles comes in and smashes Haskins in the back of the head with a wooden block. That's an obvious DQ at 08:15

Rating - * - Wrestling shows should be about variety and I can't deny that Vincent and co. are certainly different to anything else on the roster. Although derivative, I do quite like the new presentation of Marseglia and have been extremely positive about some of his recent high profile matches (think the Bar Room Brawl at Death Before Dishonor, or the Taven grudge match at Final Battle). Very little about this match worked for me however. We saw almost none of Vincent and Bateman's very weird personas or style, nor were Lifeblood given much opportunity to be the kick-ass wrestlers we know they can be. Instead we got a formulaic, generic tag where the heels used outside interference to draw easy heat rather than do anything interesting...capped off with a bullsh*t finish.

The intriguing thing about this 8-man tag is that on both sides of the ring we'll see teams with reasons to dislike or mistrust one another. We know the long history between Silas and The Bouncers, which laid dormant for some time but reignited last year when Silas betrayed the big men again and joined with Vincent in a memorable, blood-soaked Bar Room Brawl. Gresham beat Woods via count-out last night in Atlanta, but in tag team competition 2 Guys 1 Tag have been unstoppable as of late. 

The champions piss everyone else in the match off by taking an eternity to come to the ring, then stall further whilst Gresham 'stretches' and Lethal chats to the timekeeper. They get into a disagreement with Cobb and Maff about who should start as well. They finally agree on Gresham to start, in the ring with Silas - the man who helped trigger the personality shift which led Gresham to the Tag Titles. As the 'Technician Of Honor', Young is more than happy to grapple with Gresh - finally driving him back to his corner in frustration. Woods puts the exclamation point on it and sends The Octopus packing; Gresh having a temper tantrum on the floor and gives way to Lethal. Josh starts going after Lethal's broken arm in a brilliant exchange, ending when Jay decides to call out Bruiser instead. Jay soon exits in favour of Cobb, having a similar tantrum to Gresham on the floor too. Milonas tags and SQUASHES Cobb with an ass splash! Maff tags - and even he is dwarfed by Brawler. Milonas CATCHES Dan, but he escapes and decks the Kingpin with a Pounce. Lethal and Gresham drag Woods to the floor and attack him (informing Cobb and Maff that they are 'helping out')! They take turns working Woods over, all while refusing to tag their other partners and antagonising everyone else in the match. Eventually they get distracted trying to fight all four opponents at once...and Woods blasts Gresham with a jumping knee strike to escape their clutches. PLUNGE on Gresham, not delivered with much control and looking even more brutal as a result. Maff has to save the Tag Champions...but then accidentally levels Lethal with a strike as well. BIG MAN TOPE takes out Milonas! Spear on Silas gets 2! Woods saves his partner with a German suplex and tries to break Maff's ankle...only for Dan to escape and land a cannonball senton. MILONAS THROWS BRUISER OFF THE APRON AT THE CHAMPS! Bossman Slam from Brawler to Cobb! KEG SPLASH gets 2! 2G1T, Lethal and Gresham continue brawling on the floor, as Cobb hits TOUR OF THE ISLANDS on Bruiser! He wins at 18:42

Rating - *** - The positives of the match were an exceptional asshole heel performance from Lethal and Gresham, the amount of fun we got out of Maff, Cobb and The Bouncers in the ring together and a really hot finishing sequence which pulled those elements together very well. My biggest issue was the almost complete lack of acknowledgement of Silas' issues with The Bouncers. That Bar Room Brawl was obscenely violent. Dusting over it to have Silas and Bruiser on the same team again without much issue just a few months later is incredibly damaging to the legacy of that encounter.

Tape Rating - N/A - If you watch the live shows then there is almost nothing for you here. This show exists almost entirely to cram in as much footage from Honor Reigns Supreme as possible. That isn't a bad thing, and the main event multi-man tag is both a good match as well as being solid build to future Tag Title defences for Lethal and Gresham. But outside of an (admittedly funny) Hendry/Castle skit and another of Brian Zane's dorky Top 5's you're getting almost no new content if you watched Honor Reigns Supreme on Honor Club.