BRM Reviews ROH Final Battle 2022 (FTR VS. BRISCOES AGAIN!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews ROH Final Battle 2022 (FTR VS. BRISCOES AGAIN!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Dec 11th, '22, 18:49

ROH Final Battle 2022 (12/10/2022)- Arlington, TX


The old logo (or at least an approximation of it) is back. That’s nice.

A.R. FOX & BLAKE CHRISTIAN vs. AFO (Rush & Dralistico) (w/Jose the Assistant & Preston Vance)- 6/10
They did some good athletic stuff early on, then Rush tagged in and did his stupid Rush sh*t on the floor. We got back to some good action after that. Dralistico appeared to at least attempt to kick out on the finish, which confused a lot of people. Even if he didn’t actually kick out, he shouldn’t have made it look like he was trying, as he had just taken a big combination of moves, including two of A.R. Fox’s finishers. This feels like the Munoz family being up to their usual bullsh*t, and I don’t understand why Tony brought Rush in in the first place, giving his reputation.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
The AFO beat the babyfaces up after the match. Dralistico managed to get Fox in the head with a chair even though Fox had his hand up. The camera then missed a chairshot by Rush to Christian because upon seeing Rush wind up, the idiot director decided to cut away to show us A.R. selling. Rush yelled at the referee and grabbed a cable to choke Fox with, but then decided not to. If you’re going to do this (and you shouldn’t, because it basically negates the babyfaces’ victory), at least have Preston Vance be an active participant, to show us that he has fully bought into the AFO’s ways. But that didn’t happen, which left this feeling not like something done for any artistic reason, but rather as something that the Munoz’s insisted on in exchange for losing the match, and do you really want people like that in your company?


ROH WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE MATCH: Mercedes Martinez(c) vs. Athena- 6.75/10
That googly-eye third eye on Athena’s head looks atrocious. Even worse than her wings did. The LED message board on the back of her jacket was good heel douchebaggery, though. The fans still cheered her, though, and they showed her parents in the crowd. So Tony Khan turned Athena heel, and then booked her first big match as a heel to be her challenging for the title in her home market. *Facepalm.*
This was a good match, as physical as you’d expect from these two. Athena won after ripping a turnbuckle pad off and giving Mercedes a Shotgun Dropkick, sending her head into the exposed turnbuckle, then hitting the O-Face. The crowd went crazy for this heel cheating to win. And apparently she’s now on a fifteen-match winning streak. Well… if they had mentioned that at some point during the build to this match, she wouldn’t have seemed like such a ridiculous choice of a challenger.

SWERVE IN OUR GLORY vs. SHANE TAYLOR PROMOTION (Shane Taylor & JD Griffey)- 7/10
Lee offered Swerve a fist-bump during their entrance but Swerve left him hanging. I don’t understand that. Doesn’t Swerve want Lee to remain his partner? Why needlessly offend him? Or, if this is a swerve and their going to do the Ole turns on Dusty/Flair turns on Sting at Halloween Havoc 1995 deal, why do anything that could make him suspicious?
Ian Riccaboni started to talk about a match booked for the 15th Anniversary Show involving Lee and Taylor for which graphics aired on TV but which never wound up happening because Lee left the company, but I have no memory of this, and couldn’t find it in my notes of those TV shows, either.
Ian stopped talking about said match because Swerve tagged himself in, robbing the fans of this Lee vs. Taylor showdown which Ian said was “five years in the making.” This is one of those spots that bugs me, because while it makes perfect sense from the perspective of trying to get the fans angry at Swerve, it doesn’t seem to serve any in-character purpose for him. If he wants Lee to remain his partner, why is he doing things that seem like they will only annoy Lee?
Anyway, they did stuff and it was all great. Then we got a spot where Lee caught Griffey on a dive and was going to powerbomb or tree-slam him into the apron but Griffey said “Mom will kill you. Mom will kill you” and Lee relented. Then Swerve ran in and kicked him Griffey in the side of the head, which angered Lee. Why? It’s a professional combat sport! Deal with it. And it’s not like you yourself weren’t trying to hurt this guy several times in the match already!
The other spot that really irritated me was when Lee went into the ring to break up a submission that Griffey had on Swerve, but instead of just stomping on him, Lee walked past them, climbed up to the second rope, and did a moonsault. Not only was it idiotic to just walk past them, but the submission in question, if Swerve hadn’t already escaped on his own, any kind of high-flying move would have crushed Swerve just as much as Griffey.
Other than those few bits, I really enjoyed the action here, and they did a decent job of Lee and Taylor apart enough that a singles match will feel completely fresh. What I didn’t like was the storyline stuff. In addition to what I listed above, there was also the big moment in the match where Lee accidentally hit Strickland with a big strike, and Strickland walked out on him. I just can’t reconcile Strickland being so desperate to keep Lee on his side that he tried to recruit him even after Lee walked out of a title match on him and then manipulated this tag team match into happening (as was implied on AEW TV), and yet also being so petty that he would walk out on Lee after what was clearly an accident.
Fortunately for Lee, Griffey accidentally hit Taylor with a kick soon after that, and Lee was able to hit the Bing Bang Catastrophe for the win. I guess that could lead to Taylor turning on Griffey and then Lee and Griffey teaming up to face Strickland and Taylor, but that doesn’t interest me anywhere near as much as Lee, Strickland, and Taylor all being singles wrestlers.

ROH WORLD SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Dalton Castle & the Boys(c) vs. the Embassy (Brian Cage & the Gates of Agony) (w/Prince Nana)- 5/10
The Embassy dominated most of this, but the match went on for way too long. The spot where Toa Liona got both Boys up for a Samoan Drop didn’t go well, and undermined him as a powerhouse. The Embassy won pretty much cleanly.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS TOP FLIGHT, BUT THAT GETS INTERRUPTED AND THEY BRAWL- bad
Darius was okay. Dante started to cut a wacky promo, which- I assume through some sort of magnetic pull, drew 2.0 to them to interrupt them. They told Lexi to back up, presumably so Menard’s yelling would blow out the microphone. Menard dared them to punch him… so Dante did. I popped huge. They brawled off camera as Lexi called for someone to come break the fight up. Ian Riccaboni getting so upset about Lexi being called “toots” came off as an overreaction. Don’t get me wrong: it was a heelish thing to do, but of the bad things you can call someone in pro wrestling, it’s pretty low on the scale.
The two teams brawled to ringside. Dante Martin got to hit a big dive, but 2.0 wound up winning the brawl. Parker got a mic and climbed into the ring to cut a promo. He asked why ROH died if it was so great?
That’s a good question, Angelo. In short, ROH died because it strayed from its established identity of top-notch in-ring wrestling with a major emphasis on clean finishes, character development, logical booking and storytelling where the booker made an effort to fill in as many potential plot-holes as possible and then worked with the announcers to ensure that this information was clearly communicated to the audience, and an atmosphere that what you were watching was a sport, where the results mattered and the promotion would do what they could to enforce fair play, and instead it became a place where work-rate standards were lowered for those willing to pay money for enough training camps, while other wrestlers were not given the time to show what they could do, even on shows streamed on ROH’s streaming service, the storylines became full of plot-holes, heel were constantly undermined by being shown to be completely unable to win cleanly, which also resulted in a sharp move away from the emphasis on clean finishes, characters didn’t develop- partially due to incompetence and partially due to the booker trying to focus on far too many people for the TV time he had, meaningless titles were introduced that only further diluted both the value of a championship and the depth of the divisions and further taxed the TV time, and the presentation became more about shtick than about being a sport where results mattered, title shots were earned with victories over formidable competition, and fair play was valued by the promotion. Are you paying attention, Tony?

Anyway, Parker continued to talk about how ROH was bad, but only Chris Jericho can make it worthwhile. Menard then cut a promo about what would happen to Claudio Castagnoli if he lost tonight. So yeah. Tony Khan is wasting time on a PPV trying to sell the importance of the main event to an audience who have all either already bought a ticket to the show or bought the PPV.
Eventually Wheeler YUTA came out and chased them away so we could get down to the…

ROH PURE TITLE MATCH: Daniel Garcia(c) vs. Wheeler YUTA- 7.5/10
Both guys got warned for using closed-fist punches to the face within the first thirty seconds. They did some stuff on the outside, including YUTA getting necked on the rope in a clever way. Garcia wound up in control and knocked YUTA into the ropes, then locked on a submission, and the referee charged YUTA a rope-break for this, even though in the past it has been made clear to us that if you’re already in the ropes and someone grabs you, it’s not a rope-break. Then it got even more ridiculous, as Garcia PULLED YUTA INTO THE ROPES and applied a kind of Romero Strech kind of thing leaning back off the apron. It was actually a really cool spot… except the referee then charged YUTA with a rope-break even though he was pulled into the ropes by his opponent specifically to set up an illegal hold that could not have been possible without the aid of the ropes!
Then Garcia went and started working YUTA’s neck with legal holds. Why not just go and do the same thing until he’s out of rope breaks, and then keep doing it?
Things would get worse later in the match when YUTA was out of rope-breaks and Garcia got him in a Sharpshooter and YUTA valiantly crawled to the ropes for a break but didn’t have one, so he managed to grab Garcia’s chin and pull him down in a kind of Inverted Muta-Lock, which Garcia’s back clearly bent over the ropes… and somehow this was not a rope-break counted against Garcia. Ian Riccaboni assured is that this was “the right call” even though it was the same situation as the one YUTA was in before, and in that case it went the other way, and Ian thought that was a good call, too.
I feel bad spending so much digital ink on that because otherwise this was a great match, but a part of the drama was designed to come from the fact that YUTA had to fight back from such a disadvantage because he lost all three of his rope-breaks early on while Garcia never lost any, but that was undermined by the fact that the way they chose to set that up directly contradicted the way that this rule had been enforced in the past (not the distant, Nigel McGuinnes past, either. The voice in my head explaining that ruling to me is Ian Riccaboni, not Lenny Leonard or CM Punk or whatever alias Gabe Sapolsky was using on commentary). The match really was great, though, with Garcia working over YUTA’s neck and YUTA having great babyface fire. YUTA came back and got the win, eventually just turning it on and going into kill mode, targeting the head with the aforementioned submission in the ropes, a big move or two, and then getting the win via stoppage with Crucifix Elbows.
After the match, YUTA offered Garcia a handshake, but Garcia kicked the belt out of his hand… but then he bent down and picked it up and handed it to YUTA. I hate this crap so much. Either have him show actual respect and accept the handshake (and then deal with the consequences from Jericho) or don’t have him show any respect at all.

DOUBLE DOG COLLAR MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: FTR(c) vs. the Briscoes- a PERFECT 10/10!
It would have been nice if the video package they showed before this match had actually mentioned the Briscoes getting a phantom pinfall on FTR in their previous match to explain why they were getting another rematch. I shouldn’t have to look that kind of thing up in my review of a show from five months ago. Putting that kind of thing on TV makes it look like the promotion actually cares about fair play and determining who truly is the best team in the world instead of what we got here, which was essentially “OMG their last two matches were SOOOOO AWESOME that we want to book another match because that one will be awesome, too! And we’ll make it even more awesome by making it a gimmick match this time!”
Ian said that there had only been one Dog Collar match in ROH history “to my recollection.” A note to all announcers: if you’re not absolutely certain of something like this, follow Ian’s lead here and qualify it with something like “to my recollection.” I came up with three on my own (CM Punk vs. Jimmy Rave, CM Punk vs. Raven, and Austin Aries vs. Jimmy Jacobs), and a search of my previous reviews yielded two more (Adam Pearce vs. Delirious, and Necro Butcher vs. Jimmy Rave).
By the way, the reason I was able to remember Aries vs. Jacobs is because the show it was on was called Bound By Hate. That right there is why the individual show names (and especially the non-generic ones) were so important. They created shortcuts to help fans remember the history of the promotion. And that’s for a show I haven’t actually even seen yet (the Rave vs. Necro match was on one of the Final Countdown Tour shows, and Delirious vs. Pearce was on Without Remorse, and while I didn’t remember that match, I did remember that the top two matches on the show were the No Remorse Corps getting tag and world title shots).
Ian was correct when he asserted that there had never been a Double Dog Collar match in ROH before. Steen & Corino vs. Cabana and Generico from Glory By Honor IX immediately came to my mind, but then I remember that that was a double Steel Chain match instead. I was actually kind of shocked at both there not having been a Double Dog Collar match in ROH before and the relatively small amount of singles match of the gimmick. It seems like the kind of thing the Briscoes and ANX would have done, or Cabana and Homicide or as some random blow-off in 2003 or 2004.
The match itself was… well… everything you’d expect it to be. That’s the only way to put it. Wonderful, brutal, bloody violence. If you haven’t seen it yet, just go watch it now, before I have to spoil it for you.


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
The Briscoes left with their belts, at which point Gunn Club hopped the barricade and attacked the weakened FTR. They said they would kill FTR’s legacy. The Briscoes came back to make the save. Dax crawled over to a microphone and said that their new mission would be to beat the Gunns’ asses.


ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Samoa Joe(c) vs. Juice Robinson- 6.75/10
They gave Juice a lot of offense, but he never came across as a real threat to. Joe got the win after crotching Juice on the top rope and hitting the Muscle Buster.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH IN WHICH IF CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI LOSES, HE MUST JOIN THE JERICHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY: Chris Jericho(c) vs. Claudio Castagnoli- 6.75/10
The bell rang. Claudio offered Jericho a handshake. Jericho responded by kicking Claudio in the stomach… and then wasted his advantage to go after the announcers on the outside. Why would he do that? If he wanted to go after them so badly, surely he would have done it before the match started, right?
As Jericho chased Ian and Caprice around the ring, Claudio intercepted him with a European Uppercut to start off the shine, but Jericho cut him off soon after and worked on his back. Eventually 2.0 came out to distract the ref and had Jericho his baseball bat. No one came out to try to stop them. Where is Wheeler YUTA or Top Flight? Where is Jon Moxley, who was so gung-ho on preventing this same heel stable from cheating on Dynamite just a few days ago?
Jericho hit Claudio with the bat, but Claudio kicked out. The referee ejected 2.0 from ringside. Claudio got a small package, but Jericho kicked out. Jericho hit a Codebreaker, then set up for the Judas effect but Claudio countered it, then did a Big Swing… and Chris Jericho eventually tapped out to a Big Swing. Yes, really. Are you f*cking kidding me?
Oh. And this match only got seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes for your big ROH World Title match blowoff where Claudio is saving ROH from Jericho once and for all. Here’s a thought: Maybe learn from Delirious’ mistakes, and instead of doing that pointless brawl and promo earlier, you could have given those five minutes to this match? Or maybe even cut out the pointless tag in the opener and given those thirteen minutes or so (including entrances) to this match, the Women’s World Title match, and TV Title match?


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Wheeler YUTA and Jerry Lynn came out to celebrate with Claudio, while Ian exclaimed that “the dark cloud has been lifted” because ROH has been saved from the JAS. With the way Ian was reacting, you’d think more people would come out to celebrate with Claudio, but apparently not.
And how does Ian (or Moxley, on Wednesday, for that matter) know that this war is over? Jericho and Garcia can’t have rematches? What’s to stop Jericho from still trying to attack announcers? Doesn’t Jericho still hate ROH and want to desecrate and/or destroy it for his still unexplained reasons? If tapping out in Blood & Guts didn’t make Jericho want to end this feud, why should this loss?


This show was, unfortunately, what I have come to expect from Tony Khan’s ROH. Some good wrestling (albeit relatively disappointing in the big matches outside of FTR vs. Briscoes and YUTA vs. Garcia), but with almost no attempts at stringing together storylines that feel like ROH storylines rather than extensions of AEW. Matches on an ROH PPV should not feel like a part of an AEW storyline that didn’t fit on Rampage (Swerve in Our Glory’s match and the opener, for example, or Gunn Club’s post-match attack on FTR, which surely would have happened on this week’s Dynamite after FTR lost to the Acclaimed if Final Battle hadn’t happened to be this weekend).
Where are guys who feel like ROH guys as opposed to AEW guys? At the moment, the only ones they have are the Briscoes, and arguably Samoa Joe, Claudio Castagnoli and Mercedes Martinez. Where is, say, Colt Cabana or Bandido? Why was Juice Robinson challenging for the TV Title instead of Cabana, and why was that challenge not set up with Cabana winning at the previous ROH show (and then keeping a good record on Dark/Dark Elevation or AEW TV)? For a guy who supposedly loves booking so much and who bought this company purely out of affection for it, Tony seems to have absolutely no plans in place for what it’s going to be and who is going to be featured. The only consistency has been the Briscoes vs. FTR, and that has only been such a big deal because the matches have been so great. It feels like if their first match had flopped, the tag division would feel just as aimless as everything else.
And I don’t care that they don’t have TV at the moment. You can still create a sense of direction coming out of a show by teasing matches via post-match confrontations and big returns, etc. You know… like what Tony seemed to be doing on the first show, but then followed up on almost nothing (and certainly didn’t follow up on anything at the next ROH show. I’m still waiting for any kind of story between Lethal and Joe). That’s what this show needed to do, but all most of it did was make me feel like I was watching more AEW. They didn't even announce the expected news of some sort of ROH TV or internet deal at the end of the show.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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Thelone
Posts: 430
Joined: Jul 9th, '19, 16:22

Re: BRM Reviews ROH Final Battle 2022 (FTR VS. BRISCOES AGAIN!)

Post by Thelone » Dec 12th, '22, 06:59

I'm sure you read it already, but the big announcement was that "ROH" TV would resume in january on Honor Club for $9,99/month (PPVs not included, they'll be available on 90-day delay apparently), which sums up how dead that (shell of a) promotion is and how much of an impulse purchase this was with next to zero thought put into it before or after.

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Big Red Machine
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Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

Re: BRM Reviews ROH Final Battle 2022 (FTR VS. BRISCOES AGAIN!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Dec 12th, '22, 11:57

Yeah. The idea that he thinks he can build a brand up by asking people to pay for TV is insane.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

Re: BRM Reviews ROH Final Battle 2022 (FTR VS. BRISCOES AGAIN!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Dec 13th, '22, 09:47

Tony clarified at the scrum that Cabana was injured.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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