BRM Reviews ROH Road to Best in the World 2016: Collinsville (great)

[Big Red Machine]

ROH Road to Best in the World 2016: Collinsville (6/3/2016)- Collinsville, IL

There is a new ring announcer. She is wearing ripped jeans. It looks highly unprofessional. Ring announcers should be wearing suits, tuxedos, or long dresses.

CAPRICE COLEMAN vs. DALTON CASTLE (w/the Boys)- 6.75/10
Caprice cut what sounded like a good promo except he was talking too fast to understand. This was a very good opener. I was very glad to see Dalton’s wackiness toned down while the actual match was going on.

MARK BRISCOE vs. JASON KINCAID- 6.75/10
Kincaid comes off as one of those guys that are all too prominent on the indies nowadays who have a weird look and act weird just for the sake of it. I get the whole “standing out” thing, but you’ve got to have some sort of character behind it or else you’re never going to be more than just a weirdo on the undercard.
Kincaid’s “character” is that he claims to have “technical wizardry” in professional wrestling. Stealing catchphrases is never good, but stealing Joey Ryan’s is an even worse idea now that we know he’s an undercover cop. Also, Kindcaid sometimes sits cross-legged in the middle of the ring.
At one point early one they had just finished an exchange of pretty basic moves, with Kincaid getting the last laugh with an arm drag. At this point Kincaid sat down in the middle of the ring, raised his arms in the air and shouted “TECHNICAL WIZARDRY.” This did NOT sit well with veteran Mark Briscoe, so on their next exchange, Mark slapped Kincaid really hard in the face. Kincaid now also got angry and they went nose-to-nose and started trading strikes and really picked up the intensity. That was GREAT and it set the tone for this match which was Kincaid trying to prove himself in this big chance in ROH while veteran Mark Briscoe did not take well to what he perceived to be disrespect.
Kincaid does a lot of interesting new variations on things that I haven’t seen before and they gave him quite a lot here, even letting him kick out of Mark’s Fisherman Buster (the best one in all of pro wrestling) and a really great nearfall. Roddy cutting a promo burying Mark for wrestling in the second match on the card, against a guy who isn’t even a member of the roster, and even almost losing would be a good way to help get their feud over. I’m excited to see how Kincaid fares the rest of this weekend.

ALL-NIGHT EXPRESS PROMO- great. They bury other tag teams, saying that the Young Bucks look like belong in the women’s division, the Briscoes are drunkards, and War Machine is out of shape (“they don’t even have one ab between them). They demand that an ROH official come out here and that some opponents come out here for them so they can kick someone’s ass. This resulted in…

THE ALL-NIGHT EXPRESS vs. KEITH LEE & SHANE TAYLOR- 5.5/10
Well… if you’re going to claim that War Machine is out of shape then I don’t know what you would say about Lee and Taylor. Lee and Taylor apparently go by the utterly atrocious name of the “Pretty-boy Killers.”
The match was perfect for what it was. Lee and Taylor got over doing their thing and the execution on the DQ finish was PERFECT. A great cheap win for ANX.

ACH vs. BEER CITY BRUISER (w/Silas Young)- 6/10
Silas provided guest commentary for this match. They stuck to their story (Bruiser working over ACH’s back) and told it well.

ALEX SHELLEY vs. LIO RUSH- 7.5/10
GREAT match! Rush had a great showing here, and Shelley gave him enough to make the false finishes very believable. Shelley worked over Rush’s head and pulled out a really cool new DDT variation. Shelley put Rush over very strong after the match.

BJ WHITMER PROMO- he buries Steve Corino and calls him a failure. He claims Corino didn’t show up tonight because he is afraid of BJ, but the announcers tell us he is in Japan. BJ then proceeded to bury Colby Corino, saying that he will grow up to be a failure just like Steve. Colby apparently is in the building tonight, the first time we’ve seen him since BJ turned on him and assaulted him in front of his father. Colby slaps BJ and they wind up having a match…

BJ WHITMER vs. COLBY CORINO- no rating, good segment.
Colby got a brief burst of offense and got to get his sh*t in, BJ got to look like a dick for pulling Colby’s shoulders up so he could continue the beating multiple times.

CHRIS SABIN PROMO- he makes sure everyone is caught up on the Bullet Club invasion angle, then cuts a promo saying that he wants his match with Adam Page tonight to be have no count-outs and no disqualifications. Apparently he has the power to do this.

NO DISQUALIFICAITONS MATCH: Adam Page vs. Chris Sabin (w/Alex Shelley)- 7.5/10
Shelley stayed on commentary because, as he noted, if he were to get involved in this match it would make him no better than the Bullet Club.
The match was great, and Page had a good enough showing that I might buy tomorrow night’s show as well to see how performs in a main event situation (and hopefully this time there won’t be any injuries). They based the first part of it around the noose, then went to using a chair, and then went back to the noose for the finish. The only real problem I have with it was that the finish was Sabin using a submission hold with the noose and Page tapping out clean… so the babyface got his revenge and the feud should be over, right? I mean… what are we supposed to pay to see?
If I was booking this I would have had someone from ROH management (Nigel, Cary, even Senior Referee Todd Sinclair) come out and tell Sabin that he can’t change the rules of the match so drastically without Adam Page’s approval. I’d have Page, being the heel, insist that it remain a regular match (after all, he and Cole are the only Bullet Club members in the building tonight, while there are a heck of a lot of being who hate the Bullet Club- Sabin, Shelley, Lethal, and the Briscoes- on the card tonight). Sabin would agree to let it be a regular match, but would charge at Page right after the bell rings, pound on him a bit, toss him out of the ring, then go use a chair anyway, intentionally getting himself DQed. I’d have them do a weapons brawl for about two or three minutes with Sabin winning until Cole runs in to save Page. Cole would beat Sabin down for a moment until Shelley made the save, and Cole and Page would bail. This would not only build up tomorrow night’s tag team main event between these four, but it would also get over Sabin’s hatred and desire for revenge on Page (so much so that he was perfectly happy to get himself disqualified), and it also builds up to a No DQ’s match between Page and Sabin at some point in the future where you can blow this off with the noose spot they ended this match with here.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Cole attacks Sabin, Shelley makes the save, Cole and Page bail.

FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL MATCH: Roderick Strong vs. Stevie Richards vs. Moose (w/Stokely Hathaway) vs. Silas Young (w/Beer City Bruiser)- 6.5/10

ADAM COLE vs. KAMAITACHI- 7.75/10
Kamaitachi’s best showing in ROH yet. He also took a really scary bump on his back from the top rope to the floor but appeared to be okay. Cole worked over Kamaitachi’s head while Kamaitachi was just trying to prove himself against Cole.

JAY BRISCOE & WAR MACHINE vs. THE ADDICTION & JAY LETHAL (w/the House of Truth)- 8/10
They did a great job of building up to the big Lethal vs. Briscoe confrontation, and that confrontation did not disappoint. This match wasn’t only an awesome cap to a great night of professional wrestling, but it also did more than anything they have done so far to make me want to see the Lethal-Briscoe rematch. The finish of the match was quite interesting, as it saw Lethal go for a Lethal Injection on Briscoe but Daniels attacked Briscoe so Lethal couldn’t hit the move. Lethal and Daniels had a shouting match which ended when Briscoe shoved Daniels into Lethal and they conked heads, and then Briscoe rolled Daniels up for the pin. They then did a post-match angle where The Addiction attacked Briscoe. Lethal got back into the ring to argue with Daniels. Kaz tried to play peacemaker but Lethal was being really annoying so Kaz punched him and The Addiction tried to beat Lethal down but he managed to catch them both with a double Lethal Injection. Then Briscoe and Lethal had a stare-down to end the show.
This not only seems to be building towards and Lethal face turn, but also sets up a potential title match with Daniels and maybe could even be used to build to the House of Truth challenging for the tag titles. Briscoe pinning one of the tag champs also theoretically sets up for the Briscoes getting a title shot… which, if Addiction lose the belts at Best in the World 2016 could mean that we’d finally get the long-awaited rubber match between MCMG and the Briscoes that they teased doing at the Dearborn show last month.

A GREAT show from ROH. Solid wrestling all up and down the card, good build to the upcoming PPV, good performances by some of the newer faces, and a very easy show to sit through. Props are also due to Veda Scott and Ian Riccaboni for their commentary. They are SOOOOOO much better than Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino. This is definitely a show you should pick up if you just want to watch some quality professional wrestling.