McXal's Reviews

A commendable Glory By Honor weekend is in the books, and we're now steaming on towards Death Before Dishonor 18. That means we need to continue to fill out the Women's Title Tournament brackets, and this week we'll see the second batch of Quarter Final bouts; Allysin Kay facing Trish Adora and Angelina Love preparing for the intimidating challenge of Max The Impaler. Our main event is for the TV Title as the impressive Eli Isom takes on La Faccion Ingobernable's Dragon Lee. Ian Riccaboni and Caprice Coleman provide commentary, with guests Lenny Leonard and/or Chelsea Green for the Women's Tournament matches in Baltimore, MD.

This is the first time Angelina has competed in the tournament, after receiving a first round bye as a prize for her win against Quinn McKay earlier in the year. In a sit-down interview she exudes confidence, saying she didn't get to be a multi-time World Champion by laying down for people or by being afraid because she wasn't the biggest person in a match. She's also pissed off with Max and Amy after Rose expected Angelina to forfeit this match as payment for them helping her embarrass Allie Recks on Women's Division Wednesday. With Mandy Leon banned from ringside, what tricks does the veteran have up her sleeve to get past the imposing Max here?

Amy Rose gives Love one more chance to back out, which she declines. Max proceeds to ignore all of Love's strikes, so Angelina leaves the ring and exchanges cross words with Amy instead. The Impaler grabs her by the head and hurls her into the guardrails as we break for commercials. We return with Max stopping her crawling back into the ring and bouncing her face-first off the arena floor. Love desperately starts shoving Max into the ringpost...and even that has pretty much no effect. Torture Rack applied, and when Angelina blocks The Wasteland Max opts instead to launch her way across the ring; throat-first into the top rope. Max starts choking Angelina out in the ropes - and refuses to let go. They have a deranged look on their face, and despite Joe Mandak's protestations, they simply won't break the hold. Mandak has no choice but to disqualify Max at 04:46 (shown)

Rating - * - Undeniably the worst match of the tournament so far. In all fairness, I was actually enjoying this until the bogus finish. It wasn't rocket science but I think few would deny it was genuinely entertaining and that both Max and Angelina played their roles PERFECTLY. Unfortunately this all felt very 2019 Women Of Honor, which comes across as even worse than it did in 2019 when compared to some of the strong wrestling we've seen from the female athletes in the class of 2021.

Max drops Angelina to the floor, seemingly injuring her arm. Neither Max nor Amy Rose look too disappointed about being eliminated from the tournament which is another thing I absolutely hated. If they didn't give a sh*t about the tournament why enter it in the first place?

This should be a great match. Kay has been one of the favourites from the moment she got her Ticket To Gold, possessing the kind of skill and experience required to set this tournament alight. Her opponent is from the 'next generation' of female talent on the American independent scene. Her technical skill and precision in the ropes, the innate toughness she brings having served in the arm forces, the way she presents herself as a role model, and her emotional interview before her first round match have all made an incredible impression. Allysin is excited for this because it's 'lariat vs lariat'...

Both women start by trying to control the arm and stay close to their opponent, very obviously trying to negate the other's lariat right out of the gate. Kay tries to ground and pound her opponent but has her work cut out with a technician of Adora's skill. Adora tries an armbar...but Allysin stands up, dumps her to the ground and counters to an attempted cross armbreaker. When we return from commercials we see that AK is dialling up the intensity, almost snapping Trish with a half crab then picking her up on her shoulders and DUMPING her straight over the top rope to the floor. PK by AK, who then circles her opponent with ill-intent to pepper her with more martial arts inspired strikes. It is Kay's aggression which is seeing her get ahead - constantly taunting her opponent and punctuating all her offence with serious malice. Trish is jerked to the ground by her hair, which causes her to snap and start firing off some big hits of her own. Swinging backbreaker gets 2! GERMAN SUPLEX in response by Allysin. Adora counters a second into a diving armbreaker...but when she tries to throw the Lariat Tubman, Kay grabs the arm and almost drops her into the Kimura which beat Willow in the first round. Rear naked choke instead and Adora is forced to roll her entire body over to escape...with her only reward being a break in the hold then a roundhouse kick to the head from Kay. Big D ducked! Lariat Tubman COUNTERED TO MMA ELBOWS! Again Trish frantically crawls to the ropes. LARIAT TUBMAN! Adora hits her big finish and books her place in the Semi-Final at 11:18 (shown)

Rating - *** - Both of Kay's matches in the tournament have been great, arguably even the best matches of the tournament so far. She has really delivered in the ring, exuding confidence and attacking each match with the poise, confidence and skill you'd expect of a dangerous, top class veteran competitor. She had great chemistry with Adora as well; her ability to strike, grapple and get flat out nasty giving her an obvious edge and pushing Trish incredibly hard until she made the big babyface comeback. My big criticism was that for the time given this felt a little TOO focused on how good Allysin Kay is. The previous times we've seen Adora wrestle we've seen her showcase great skill as a technician and incredible toughness. It's not that we didn't see that here, its that the whole match felt like Allysin Kay proving herself a BETTER technician and tougher fighter...with Adora only winning because she took a puncher's chance and hit her finish. 

After making it to the final two in Survival Of The Fittest 2021, few would deny that Eli deserves this shot at the TV Title. 2021 has been perhaps the strongest year of his entire career in terms of his performances inside the ropes and to many he has now at last progressed from being the young kid out of the Dojo or being Cheeseburger's protege to a skilled competitor in his own right. Will that be enough for him to take out the exceptionally gifted TV Champion though? This is Lee's first defence of the belt since winning it back from Tony Deppen at Best In The World. Dalton Castle is on commentary and has ongoing issues with Eli.

Isom gets the better of the first lock-up...only for Lee to take a cheap-shot then almost take him out with an Incinerator. Eli is impressed and offers a handshake, from which he retaliates with a cheap-shot of his own! SOMERSAULT PLANCHA by Dragon, who pauses to ensure the commentators put him over. He starts battering Isom's midsection into the guardrails and ring apron trying to make it hard for him to breathe. Back in the ring he applies a half crab to put more pressure on the same body parts. Isom manages to escape...and lays Lee out with a somersault plancha of his own! Frog crossbody into the ring gets 2. Dragon gets into a strike battle with his young challenger, who again surprises him by matching him blow for blow. Dragon's Fire COUNTERED to a German suplex, which Lee no-sells and hits a German of his own. NECK DROP GERMAN BY ELI! Lee gets up again and plants him with a reverse rana. Incineration countered into a clothesline by the challenger...so Dragon lands a snap German. Pop-up neckbreaker in response by Isom and they are both slow to get back up afterwards. The Promise blocked by hanging Isom over the ropes - and blasting the ribs with a missile dropkick. Incinerator caught...only for Isom to miss an enzi and Lee to drive the Incinerator into the back of the head instead. RIPCORD INCINERATOR! Dragon starts punting at Eli's barely moving torso...but Eli NO SELLS AND HITS THE PROMISE! Lee kicks out! The Promise again COUNTERED to another Incinerator. Desnucadora...GETS 2! BARE KNEE INCINERATION! Lee retains at 11:59 (shown)

Rating - **** - Too heavy on the no-selling, with some unbelievably annoying commentary thanks to Dalton, but this was still the best match that we've seen on ROH's TV show in weeks. Lee is an amazing wrestler and ROH simply doesn't provide him with the right platform to showcase it often enough. As soon as he gets back into the New Japan junior scene (assuming that's where he ends up post-ROH) he will start tearing it up. But having said that he is more than capable of working explosive, neck-drop loaded, ultra no-sell matches like this in his sleep. What elevated this one was how hard it put Isom over. The whole match had a very simple formula designed to showcase that Eli can do EVERYTHING Dragon Lee can. He can hit the same dives, the same strikes, he can get up after being dropped on his head just as often etc. In the end he lost because Lee has a lot more experience in situations like this where two guys are just unloading offensive bombs on each other in the closing stages of a match, but Isom made a real statement with his performance. 

Dragon Lee extends his hand and shows his respect to Dragon Lee. Since this airs after Glory By Honor, this continues the theme we saw there were Lee is starting to disagree with some of his brother's 'Ingobernable' actions...

Tape Rating - *** - A slightly strange episode in that it contained probably the worst match we've seen on ROH TV for quite a while (Angelina/Max), but also the best in Lee/Isom. It was another episode where you were fed almost no storylines, but instead given an intensive, in-ring focused forty five minutes...and most of those minutes were well spent with the main event, plus the very strong Kay vs Adora Women's Tournament bout. If you watch the ROH TV show selectively and only drop in for the very best matches then in truth I don't think you've bothered with ROH's show much recently - but you should find time for Lee vs Isom, it's silly but a lot of fun.