ROH on Sinclair - Episode 452 - 15th May 2020
This week we're off to Dalton Castle's house as he hosts a special spotlight episode dedicated to himself. He is a former World Champion, having grafted from a first round elimination in the 2015 Top Prospect Tournament, to the main event of Final Battle in 2017 - in a career which has seen incredible highs, unforgettable moments, almost unrivalled charisma, dazzling jumpsuits, and multiple lows too.
Within seconds its clear that Dalton is a lot more comfortable hosting a show and filming his own content than Marty Scurll was last week. He opens with a comedy montage of weird workouts and pet interactions that he has kept busy doing during the pandemic quarantine - but quickly gets serious as he talks about becoming World Champion whilst fighting through a broken back.
After clips of the Dalton/Cody match we return to Dalton's apartment to join him as he tries to make himself a pizza. He talks about the issues he faced as World Champion, and directly references Supercard Of Honor 12 when he defended the belt in the main event against Marty Scurll - when many within the company felt Cody/Omega should have main evented (which it should have). He is proud of the match though, despite breaking a finger ten minutes in and dealing with back and leg injuries along the way too.
A TV edit of the Castle vs Scurll World Title Match from Supercard Of Honor 12 is shown
Next he discusses taking some time off after losing the World Title, and honestly admits that he was slow and found it tough to 'get his groove back' when he did return from injury later in 2018. He remains proud of his entrance into Madison Square Garden at G1 Supercard too...
A TV edit of Castle & Joe Hendry facing Lifeblood, The Righteous and PJ Black/Brian Johnson in a four corner tag bout at Bound By Honor 2020 is shown.
Tape Rating - N/A - One of the quirkiest and most inventive pandemic 'profile' episodes so far. I feel like a lot of the credit should go to Castle for this as he clearly put a lot of thought and time into filming all the different comedic beats - and that effort made for a vast improvement in the quality of his self-shot 'at home' footage versus Scurll the week before. It's probably the first time since the very first one of these (the Briscoes episode) where I felt like it was a worthwhile watch even if you've not seen the match content, simply because of how engaging Castle was. I particularly enjoyed the little snippets where he seemed to break character (talking about his back issues, bitterness at people within the company not wanting him to main event Supercard Of Honor in 2018, or his limited performances following his return from injury in 2018/19) - as it's interesting to see a wrestler's take on things like that.