ROH on Sinclair - Episode 542 - 4th February 2022
In late-January, to celebrate their pending twentieth anniversary, ROH announced the creation of a 'Hall Of Fame'. It has felt inevitable that this would happen at some point, although after they'd hyped it as something of a 'huge' announcement I won't pretend that it is something which overly excited me. There are quite a few pro-wrestling 'halls of fame' now; all of which provide wonderful platforms to celebrate the deserving people who have contributed to professional wrestling. In the context of corporate-owned Ring Of Honor, however, it felt quite a lot like another attempt to cash in on the greatness of the company largely before Sinclair sunk their claws and teeth into it. The best part of the announcement was the subsequent reveal that the Briscoes would be the inaugural inductees. That feels absolutely right, richly deserved...and tonight's episode is a 'Hall Of Fame special' dedicated to Jay and Mark...
After a slightly tedious title sequence (with what feels like literally the first free graduation/hall of fame generic theme they could find), the show begins with a stirring montage of the Briscoes in ROH through every 'chapter' and highlights their rivalries with every great team to come through the company (there are so many that the likes of reDRagon, WGTT and American Wolves don't even get mentioned).
A TV edit of the Briscoes vs AJ Styles & Amazing Red for the ROH Tag Titles from Night Of Champions is shown
SIDENOTE - Holy sh*t! ROH has remembered they have old footage! And goddamn the finish to that match is every bit as incredible watching in 2022 as it was back in 2003 the first time I saw it...
Next we see highlights of Jay and Mark's twelve (!!) ROH Tag Championship victories. I had completely forgotten there was a such a huge gap between their eight and ninth title wins. It's an incredible anthology of footage nevertheless...
Footage of Jay beating Kevin Steen for his first World Title, then Michael Elgin for his second comes next
A TV edit of the Briscoes vs Cody & Adam Page from Global Wars 2018: Lewiston is shown
Tape Rating - N/A - For the last two weeks I've been crying out for Sinclair to make better use of ROH's vast archive of footage and I won't deny that this episode does exactly that (and is all the better for it). This certainly isn't the most innovative career retrospective of the Briscoes in ROH - even the pandemic episode they broadcast on them back in 2020 did a better job of that - but as a whirlwind clip-show of the Briscoes through the years, plus a couple of random feature length bouts, this was fine. Other than leaching off whatever name value Cody and Hangman Page possess, I have no clue what that average Global Wars 2018 match added to the broadcast. Nobody would dispute that the Briscoes are very worth of the first spot in the ROH Hall Of Fame though, and I enjoyed checking this out as a whistle-stop celebration of their contributions to Ring Of Honor...