BRM Reviews the 12/17/2016 ROH

[Big Red Machine]

Nigel McGuinness and Kevin Kelly are on commentary. No mention of Steve Corino’s absence.
OPENING SEGMENT- good segment
Kyle is out to cut his first promo as ROH World Champion. He says he will defend the belt with honor and integrity just like the champions of the past, and the two names out of his mouth are Dragon and Nigel. I love the sentiment, but Dragon was not known for his squeaky clean defenses (as Colt Cabana can attest) and Nigel was ROH longest-running heel champion and had an entire show called Injustice after something he did in a title match.
Adam Cole comes out and says that it’s not fair that he lost his title at Final Battle because he spend weeks training for a regular match but then the match got changed to a No DQs match at the last minute… and he’s got a point. Cole says he should still be the champion.
Dalton Castle comes out and reminds us all that heat pinned ROH World Champion Adam Cole in Champions vs. All-Stars, so he should be first in line for an ROH Word Title match. I’m not saying that Dalton hasn’t earned a title shot, but I think the whole “first in line” thing goes out the window when you realize that he has LOST OVER HALF OF HIS MATCHES SINCE THEN. I also find it kind of odd that Dalton hasn’t said anything about this title at any point between now and when he pinned Cole almost two months ago. This sort of thing happens very often in ROH nowadays, all up and down the card, and it’s an aspect of Delirious’ booking that I find very frustrating.
Bobby Fish also came out and said he wanted a title shot. Cole cut a promo in which he got frustrated and walked off. Kyle finished it off by cutting a promo saying he would always fight for the title so long as there was a single breath left in his body etc. etc.

DECADE OF EXCELLENCE TOURNAMENT FIRST-ROUND MATCH: Mark Briscoe vs. Christopher Daniels (w/Frankie Kazarian)- 6.75/10
Daniels and Mark both cut pre-taped promos before the match. Mark’s noted that he made his ROH debut “under the tutelage of Christopher Daniels,” which actually isn’t true, as he his first match in ROH (at Honor Invades Boston happened before Mark joined The Prophecy.
Daniels was introduced as being from “Sin City” but the graphic billed him as being from “The City of Angels.” Is it really that hard to get this sort of thing right?
Daniels goes over clean, as he should throughout this entire tournament.

LIO RUSH & THE REBELLION SEGMENT- bad
Kenny King tries to recruit Lio (and anyone else within earshot) by insisting that the only reason they are currently enemies is because Lio doesn’t see things from their point of view, but if he could see things from there point of view, then he would join them. Has it crossed Rhett, Kenny, or Caprice’s minds that it might be easier to get others to see things from their point of view if they would ACTUALLY EXPLAIN WHAT THEIR POINT OF VIEW IS?
Aside from the obnoxious vagueness, Kenny’s promo wasn’t terrible. Lio Rush then responded with a decent promo of his own, saying that he stands for respect and honor and all of that good stuff, while they don’t. Then Caprice Coleman cut a promo in which he wasted an entire minute turning this theoretically serious segment into a joke. This should have been edited off of the show, and that this point Caprice should be let go. He is completely replaceable in the ring, and his only real strength, his promos, have gone from being a very good undercard babyface promo to now being a completely over-the-top joke of a heel.

LIO RUSH vs. CAPRICE COLEMAN- no rating, decent segment.
I groaned when I heard this match announced, simply because it felt like these two have wrestled each other a million times already… so imagine my shock when I went back and checked and it turns out they have only wrestled twice, on just one weekend, which was three months ago. What that means is that ROH isn’t doing a good job of making it feel like its undercard is doing anything of note. That’s bad because if everything blends together then nothing (and more importantly, no one) stands out.
Thankfully ROH kept one of these almost totally pointless matches that they insist on doing short for once, with Lio immediately rolling Caprice up for the pin. Lio was then beaten down by the Rebellion until Jay White and Donovan Dijak made the save.

BULLET CLUB (Adam Cole & the Young Bucks) vs. reDRagon & DALTON CASTLE (w/the Boys)- 7.25/10
Cole & The Bucks are now calling themselves “The Super Clique Trio” which is a completely pointless distinction here in ROH where 99% of the time Bullet Club only has four members. In fact, I’d go so far as to argue that it needlessly buries Adam Page for not being one of the cool kids.
On commentary, Nigel told us that Adam Cole agreed to the No DQs stip at Final Battle before Nigel changed it, so that closes that plot-hole up nicely.
We were supposed to believe that the Boys’ fanning caused one of the Jacksons to slip and crotch himself on the ropes. Or, you know, instead of doing stupid comedy where the babyface gets outside interference on his behalf we could maybe have a nice, clean, serious main event like we’re supposed to in ROH.
Other than that the match was fine for a fifteen minute six-man tag. Kyle makes one of the Bucks tap out, which should naturally lead to a tag title shot for reDRagon, ideally after Fish loses his ROH World Title shot against Kyle so that he can take the fall, but if that is too far off I wouldn’t have a problem with having Cole interfere to cost them the match to build up to Cole’s rematch against Kyle (and possibly even with one of the Bucks pinning Kyle to set that Buck up for a title shot after Kyle beats Cole, just to change things up for the Bucks on one show).

A pretty good show from ROH.