BRM Reviews the 8/6/2016 ROH (very bad. You should watch New Japan instead)

All ROH Related Reviews and Discussions
Post Reply
User avatar
Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

BRM Reviews the 8/6/2016 ROH (very bad. You should watch New Japan instead)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 12th, '16, 14:47

RECAP OF THE JAY LETHAL HEAD-SHAVING ANGLE- would have been good except that Lethal’s screaming into the bathroom mirror came across as SOOOOO hammy. They should have just not had the video for that and played the audio over clips of the shaving.

Nigel McGuinness and Kevin Kelly are in the booth. Nigel assures us that we will have a clean finish in tonight’s main event because “extra security is at ringside.” This would be the same “extra security” that stood by and did jack sh*t two weeks ago when Bullet Club tried to cripple Kyle O’Reilly, and then did the exact same (lack of doing any sort of) thing last week when Adam Cole approached a defenseless Jay Lethal with a f*cking PAIR OF SCISSORS.

JAY WHITE vs. WILL FERRARA- 5/10
Ferrara’s pro debut has now been changed to 2010. The graphic used to claim he debut in 2006. How do you kayfabe explain this other than to say that Ferrara lied and thus everything he says should be suspect. Oh… and according to an article on PWTorch, he is apparently an assistant trainer at the ROH Dojo along with Cheeseburger. Really. http://www.pwtorch.com/site/2016/07/14/ ... -roh-dojo/
Actually, that brings up the following point: Ferrara is billed as a graduate of the ROH Dojo and his pro debut was supposedly in 2010. Jay White, meanwhile, is billed as a graduate of New Japan’s dojo who debuted in 2013. Ferrara is an undercard jamoke who has won a grand total of ZERO big matches (or even semi-big matches) in ROH. Jay White is undefeated in ROH, and on his first night in the company he pinned one half of the ROH World Tag Team Champions and general ROH legend Christopher Daniels... and that was after he had already wrestled and defeated another top up-and-comer in Kamiatachi. What does that say about the ROH Dojo vs. the New Japan Dojo?

Jay White won. He worked the wrist a lot. Ferrara got in more offense than he really should have considering that he is a complete and total loser. Don’t get me wrong: I think the guy has talent. He showed that here. But he has been so damaged by what is at this point almost TWO YEARS of being jobber while the announcers rave on about how this guy is so totally the future of ROH (or worse. See the first Stupid Announcer Quote below… if you dare) that there is nothing they can do that will make me take “Will Ferrara” seriously anymore. Maybe he needs to start wearing a mask. It would help hide his blandness and he wouldn’t be able to speak without being exposed as Will Ferrara so we wouldn’t have to hear his awful promos. Let him practice other places, and when/if the time comes that he is good enough, you can have him unmask himself and be Will Ferrara again.

During this match, Nigel mentioned that he had told the wrestlers that anyone who interferes in the main event will be suspended for six months without pay. WELL WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO BEFORE?! This gives me a lot more faith that I’m going to get a clean finish than telling me that the world’s most useless security guards are back on the case.

Then we got some announcements:
1. SHIBATA IS COMING TO DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR- that’s exciting,
2. SHIBATA WILL BE WRESTLING SILAS YOUNG- now I’m not excited anymore.

Then we got a commercial for New Japan on AXS… and in THIRTY SECONDS they managed to come off as SOOOOOOOOO MUCH COOLER THAN ROH. They came off like a big-league product that was super-exciting with Jim Ross and Josh Barnett calling the action. They had quotes from critics that sounded respectable and are presumably respected both within wrestling circles and in the mainstream (and I don’t mean quotes from Dave Meltzer that he had to type with one hand while watching Tomohiro Ishii no-sell a howitzer. I mean things that sound respectable like http://www.TheFightNerd.com). They made me simultaneously want to rush through this show so I could watch today’s G1 show while also resolve to wait until the Okada-Goto title defense from February that I missed is broadcast on that show and watch it there instead of watching it now because both the idea of watching New Japan and the idea of hearing JR and Barnett call sounds like something I absolutely cannot miss.
But instead I’m stuck here with the world’s worst WWE-lite announcer sitting next to a former world champion who seems to be trying to correct the booker’s ineptitude on the fly, thinking of more logical solutions than the ones the booker has written for him ten minutes after he says what the booker wants him to, and watching f*cking Will Ferrara wrestle a match long enough to go through a commercial break… and lose to a guy who is product of the New Japan Dojo and has instantly been pushed as the best prospect to come to the US since The Great Muta.

MARK BRISCOE & BOBBY FISH SEGMENT- And here is the #1 contender to the TV Title claiming that a (not really) “award-winning” talk show segment hosted by the ROH TV Champion is really “communist propaganda” and an attempt at “controlling your brain,” and demanding that the music guy play his entrance theme, “The Anthem of the Sussex County Chicken” so he can host his own talk show called “The Chicken Shack.” The #1 contender proceeded to ask the ROH TV Champion if he “married an Ethiopian midget” the last time they were in Las Vegas.
Did Gabe ask Triple H for money with which to pay Delirious off to completely ruin ROH?
Fish’s promo at the end was fine, but by that point this segment was already well past dead. It ended with Mark wanting to fight but Bobby Fish, usually a fearless babyface, didn’t want to.

And just to rub it in, here’s that same awesome New Japan commercial again.

ADDICTION PROMO- great promo to build to their three-way title defense against MCMG and War Machine coming up on TV soon.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) vs. Colt Cabana- 7/10
The announcers justify Nigel’s decision to forbid Adam Cole from having any world title shots ever again. Nigel explains it by saying that “sometimes, at the end of the day, you’ve just got to put your foot down.” And I agree with that. The problem is that what Nigel did was more like putting your foot down two months after the initial crime, by which point what started off as vandalism has turned into high seas piracy! If he had put his foot down at the end of first day instead of the end of the sixty-first, such harsh measures would not have been even close to necessary, and lot more people would be a lot better off.
I would say they did a good job of milking the reveal of Lethal’s baldness, except that it actually looks a lot better than what we saw him with in the video in the beginning, so it didn’t feel like much of a reveal.
The match itself was very disappointing. They did such a good job of making it feel like a big deal, but then they only gave it about twelve minutes. It was quite the let-down and I thought it made Cabana look bad to lose so quickly after the finish of their last match had him about to win the title before Bullet Club ruined everything. And speaking of that finish, I was astounded that they didn’t even tease the Billy Goat’s Curse even once. The last match ended with the idea that Cabana was about to make Lethal tap out to that move, but he doesn’t even try for it in the rematch? That would be a huge missed opportunity under normal circumstances, but with Cabana also losing clean here it feels like even more of a mistake.
Kevin Kelly called this an “incredible match” and referred to Colt Cabana as “one of the all-time greats.” There’s hyperbole and then there is just being ridiculous.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad.
Lethal begs Nigel to lift his ban and give Cole an ROH World Title shot at Death Before Dishonor XIV so that Lethal can get his revenge on Cole for shaving him. Nigel said he can’t do this because he can’t go back on his word or else he would be a “hypocrite” (this would actually make him a liar, not a hypocrite, but semantics is the least of our issues in this segment).
Adam Cole comes out and accuses this all of being a show because Lethal is really a coward who has survived for as long as he has as champion via hand-picked challengers and dodging real, credible challengers… which for most of his title reign has actually been true. Cole calls Lethal a “little b*tch” and Lethal tells Nigel that with a guy like Cole, the only way to shut him up is to prove him wrong by beating him live on PPV for all of the world to see, so Nigel agrees to make the match.
Here’s the problem: Lethal said he wanted revenge on Cole. Nigel didn’t want to break his word by giving Cole a world title shot… so why didn’t he just book the match without the title on the line? Lethal gets his hands on Cole, Nigel doesn’t have to go back on his word… everyone wins. Lord knows that Lethal has had a whole crap-ton of non-title matches over the course of his reign and Nigel is theoretically the guy who booked all of them… so why the hell didn’t either of these two think of this extremely obvious, mutually beneficial solution?
Another very bad show from ROH.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
Kevin Kelly- “Ferrara, in a lot of ways, is the heart and soul of Ring of Honor.”
I honestly almost turned the show off after hearing this. Kevin Kelly has said a lot of completely stupid, unbelievable, credibility-destroying sh*t, but this has got to be the absolute worst of it. If Kevin thinks has anywhere hear enough truth to it to say it on the air, it’s a big flashing sign that he should be fired. If Delirious thought it was a good idea to let this air without making Kevin re-record the line, it’s a sign that he should be fired.
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

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests