BRM Reviews the 6/25/2016 ROH (Women of Honor special)

[Big Red Machine]

Because ROH respects women so much, Scarlett Boudreaux is doing the ring introductions dressed in the porniest dress ever.

VEDA SCOTT, AMBER GALLOWS, & ALLYSIN KAY vs. SUMIE SAKAI, THUNDERKITTY, & “CRAZY” MARY DOBSON- 5.5/10
Anyone named “Thunderkitty” does not belong in ROH. Anyone claiming to be 95 years old does not belong in ROH. Could we not find a female wrestler who isn’t a joke? MsChif and Elgin couldn’t find a babysitter? Pay f*cking “Thunderkitty” to babysit!
And of course we’ve got Amber Gallows running around as “the Bullet Babe” even though she will have no further to connection to the Bullet Club which is theoretically the top angle in the company right now.
This was basically a simple six-woman tag team match. They did one big spot which was a tower of doom, but the two women doing the powerbombing on the bottom were on different teams, so it looked like they were just doing a spot for the sake of doing a spot.
Was there really no other match we could have aired in place of this match with one joke wrestler, one woman whose inclusion will only cause confusion to the Bullet Club angle, one NXT jobber, and the TNA Knockouts Champion getting the win?

FAYE JACKSON VIDEO PACKAGE- holy crap! Something actually designed to make me give a sh*t about someone in this division!

ODB vs. FAYE JACKSON- DUD!
This was supposedly Jackson’s first ever match after over a year of training at the ROH Dojo. She didn’t look like it was her first match, but she definitely looked like it was one of her first ten. This was slow and boring and basically a battle of butt-based offense vs. ODB’s usual antics. ODB’s schtik was dull and played out in TNA five years ago. There is no reason for ROH to still be using her. And can someone please tell her that her f*cking Thesz Press finisher looks absolutely horrific?

MANDY LEON VS. HANIA VIDEO PACKAGE- Hania can cut a good promo. Mandy… is clearly dating the booker.
Every time they announce her matches on the ROH website, Hania has been billed as “Hania The Huntress.” In the previous video package they kept calling her “Hania the She-Wolf.” Of course, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the graphic they put up during her entrance called her “The Howling Huntress.” Is this sort of thing really that difficult to be consistent with?

MANDY LEON vs. “THE HOWLING HUNTRESS” HANIA- 6.5/10
I was quite surprised by how good this was. Mandy has definitely made some major improvements to her in-ring game in the past year. They did a little bit of Lucha, a little bit of technical stuff, a little bit of brawling, a little bit of Japanese “block your finish and set up for my finish but you block and go back into the set up for your finish.” A little bit of everything. Yes, there were a few spots that didn’t look so good, but it was a pleasant surprise, considering how this show is going so far.

KELLY KLEIN VIDEO PACKAGE- fine
BJ Whitmer did all of the talking here. He said “not that I need to explain to you what kind of athlete she is…” and then proceeds to explain exactly that to us.

TAELER HENDRIX VIDEO PACKAGE- bad, generic crap.

KELLY KLEIN (w/BJ Whitmer) vs. TAELER HENDRIX (w/Truth Martini)- 4/10
Oh come the f*ck on! They’ve been taping these pointless, interchangeable Women of Honor matches for months now, but they just HAVE to show one with an important storyline figure who is supposed to be kayfabe injured right now?! That’s some TNA-level bullsh*t right there. Actually, no. That’s worse than TNA. At least TNA has the decency to keep that sh*t to their pretty much out of continuity PPVs. ROH is putting it on their regularly broadcast TV show!
Anyway, these two did what they could with the FOUR MINUTES OF TV TIME THEY WERE GIVEN FOR THE MAIN EVENT.

This show was yet another microcosm of everything wrong with ROH right now. Mediocre undercard matches that go nowhere and mean nothing, stuff we’re supposed to care about even though we’ve never been shown any of it (like Kelly Klein’s undefeated streak), and sh*tty filler matches, stupid comedy characters that don’t belong in ROH, main events given nowhere near enough time, and announcers selling it like it’s the best thing ever when it clearly isn’t.
(Yes, I know that last thing is part of their job, but there’s a huge difference between hype and credibility-destroying hyperbole. I think this goes doubly so for a company like ROH whose reputation has been built off of actually delivering in the ring at such a high level. In a way, ROH’s entire existence has been about saying that they are a better in-ring product than WWE, and so when you put on your Women of Honor show and it’s worse than the stuff we’ve been seeing from WWE for the past year and then tell me how great it is, it hurts the promotion’s credibility, especially with new fans.)
Actually, come to think of it, this was also a macrocosm of a major problem ROH has because, quite simply, the Women of Honor are pointless. A major problem for ROH has been guys on the roster who are doing nothing but filling up TV time. Will Ferrara has been doing that his entire ROH career (and this is coming from someone who likes the guy), Donovan Dijak spent most of 2015 doing that. The ACH-Sydal tag team did that for pretty much their entire existence. Cedric Alexander was the epitome of this after his feud with Moose ended, and Moose himself often feels this way as well. Some of these guys are definitely talented enough to warrant a full-time spot in the promotion and Delirious should be finding something to do with them, but others just plain don’t need to be around all the time, taking up time on the card.
The Women of Honor also fall into this category. They really don’t bring anything to the table that ROH has put any effort into capitalizing on. They just meander around doing nothing but making live shows longer. With the poor state the booking has been in for the past year, there is absolutely no reason for Delirious to be wasting time and money focusing on them when it’s clear that the main roster needs all the focus it can get. This show was nothing but filler, and in ROH's case, it's YET ANOTHER filler show of unimportant crap taped months ago. And guess what! Next week's show won't have any new content, either!

So yeah… I hated this show, aside from the Mandy vs. Hania match… and to be honest, I’d probably have been more into the Mandy vs. Hania match if they had done both it and the first match on regular house shows so it would feel like I was watching a story develop over time, the way it’s supposed to.