BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 15th, '17, 00:43

ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (5/12/2017)- New York, NY

FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL MATCH: Bobby Fish vs. KUSHIDA vs. Silas Young (w/Beer City Bruiser) vs. Dalton Castle (w/the Boys)- 5.75/10
Before the match Silas Young grabbed a mic and started to cut a promo on KUSHIDA for coming out in a Yankees jersey to get a cheap pop. Yes, really. On a f*cking PPV. I don’t care that it was only thirty seconds! You cannot be wasting time with stupid house-show bullsh*t on a G-d damned PPV (and especially one that has nine matches in three hours).
KUSHIDA goes up for a spring board and… the camera cuts Dalton Castle down and selling. The incompetence is staggering. And not just with the camera crew, as it turns out that instead of doing, say, a springboard dropkick or knee-strike or whatever, KUSHIDA- a babyface- just landed in the ring so he could run up to Silas Young and give him a back-rake like Silas had just done to Dalton. They had a choice between “cool high-flying move” or “stupid cutesy bullsh*t comedy spot with the babyface cheating,” and they chose the latter. Wrestling in 2017 needs to get a lot better. They did stuff for a while with a bit of a story of someone always coming in to break up the pin. It was fine.

ADAM PAGE vs. FRANKIE KAZARIAN- 6/10
The video package for this match was quite good. Unfortunately, the booking hasn’t been, as I just watch ROH’s show from two weekends ago where I saw Kazarian pin Page clean to already get his revenge.
The match was very intense and very fast-paced. If the program is going to continue I guess Page winning via illegal leverage is a fine finish, but to be honest: it’s Frankie Kazarian. I’d rather Page just win clean and move on to someone else.

WAR MACHINE vs. LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (Sanada & EVIL) vs. JONATHAN GRESHAM & CHRIS SABIN (w/Alex Shelley)- 5/10
This right here is an example of a match that should not have been on this PPV. You can’t do nine ROH-quality matches on a three-hour PPV you just can’t. I understand wanting to get War Machine on the show because they’re former ROH World Tag Team Champions and also IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, but the rest of these guys, god as they are, do not need to be on this PPV. They should have stuck War Machine in the ROH World Tag Team Title match (they never got a rematch without any interference, after losing the belts a whole year ago), and you stick LIJ vs. Sabin & Gresham on the pre-show (and if that means you have leave dorks like Ferrara, Cheeseburger, the Kingdom and The Rebellion off of tonight’s card entirely, then so be it). I’d even say you should mush White vs. Ospreay into the opener to make it a Six-Man Scramble to save time on this show so that all of the matches can deliver. This a f*cking PAY-PER-VIEW. This is a match that no one is going to pay to see, either from an action standpoint or from a storyline standpoint (because there is no storyline to it) so it doesn’t belong on the f*cking PPV.
Anyway, having had their badass factor completely destroyed two weeks ago at ROH Unauthorized by being Dalton Castle’s Boys for the night, War Machine went out and got themselves some new entrance gear- in this case, warriors’ helmets- to make themselves look more badass. The match was short and predictably pointless. It also apparently needed to have a really lame chairshot spot in it that didn’t matter one bit. LIJ need to stop that spot because it almost never looks good.

JAY WHITE vs. WILL OSPREAY- 8.5/10
Well. F*ck. That was kind of insane now wasn’t it? I could go into a bit more detail the big spots but that would spoil them for you and this is one match you definitely want to go into knowing as little as possible.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Punishment Martinez attacks and steals their moment.

NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLES: The Brisoces & Bully Ray(c) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & Roppongi Vice)- 6.25/10
So the challengers come out like normal and the Briscoes come out like normal but Bully Ray has to start all the way up in the balcony (again, a waste of time on a PPV) and come through the crowd, and of course they’re all chanting “ECW! ECW!” which is exactly why any promotion that wants to look big league and look like it’s growing and look like the promotion of the future shouldn’t be bringing Bully Ray into your promotion in 2017. Even if he’s working these shows for free (which I can guarantee you he isn’t) he’s still not worth having because of the damage it does to the brand.
Then Bully starts talking, wasting even more time. Yes, we all know that we’re in New York City and we all know that you’re Bully Ray. Now shut the f*ck up, get your fat ass down to the ring and start WRESTLING. Bully announces that this match is no No DQs because apparently that’s what people want to see. Well if they wanted to see no DQs matches for no reason why did they buy tickets to ROH as opposed to, say, CZW? This is, like, the fourth time that Bully has done this sort of thing in ROH, and he’s only been in the company for about eight shows. And if, for some reason, you HAVE to do a No DQs match, why not ANNOUNCE IT IN ADVANCE, SO YOU CAN SELL MORE TICKETS/PPV BUYS? If garbage matches are truly what people want to see as Bully claims, why not ADVERTISE THEM?
And once again, please look at the whole set up of this thing. Bully Ray is the one who gets the special entrance where he is among the people, gets the spotlight all on him (literally) and is the one who gets to cut the promo for all of the cheap pops, which makes the fans chant for a promotion that he alone of the ROH roster is identified with, and allows him to have a match where he can get big pops by doing very little, whereas the other five men in the match would be perfectly at home in a regular old wrestling match. So someone please explain to me how any of this helps anyone other than Bully Ray.
Anyway, we’ve got yet another six-man tag title match with no build and where the challengers have done nothing to earn their shot, and yet another Bully Ray match that is a No DQs match for no reason. And yes, somehow, the saddest part is that I can totally see CHAOS winning here not because it would mean anything (these belts don’t mean sh*t) or because it would help any sort of storyline in any way (it wouldn’t) but simply because Delirious has proven himself to be such a mark for getting ROH Titles somehow involved in New Japan (O’Reilly being planned to drop the belt right back to Cole at the Tokyo Dome, Ishii’s title win derailing the Roddy vs. Fish feud over the TV Title, wasting PPV tag title matches on New Japan teams no one thinks has a chance in hell of winning, Lethal needing to join LIJ in order to beat a jobber like Honma) that he’d put the belts on CHAOS just for the sake of doing it.
These five brave men tried to have Bully Ray’s match while having to work around Bully Ray’s inadequacies. Bully did almost nothing, but he did get to do all of his big spots at finish, basically turning the Briscoes into a pair of redneck Devons.

ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Marty Scurll(c) vs. Matt Sydal- 7.75/10
A fun match brought down by the fact that absolutely no one thought that Sydal had a chance of walking out with the belt, which has been an issue with all of Scurll’s title defenses due to Delirious’ ridiculous decision to only book him against guys who either aren’t under ROH contract or who are on their way out the door. Scurll worked the arm and shoulder and tried to win with the crossface chicken wing while Sydal used his athleticism to do athletic stuff to try to win.

ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Young Bucks(c) vs.Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI)- 7/10
This is a match between two teams of heels that get cheered like babyfaces for being heels. What has wrestling come to?
Anyway, we’ve got a tag title match on PPV where absolutely no one thinks the belts have a snowball’s chance in hell of changing hands because the challengers are fly-ins from New Japan. You know, just like the last time the New Japan crew was in town for a PPV (and as was the original plan at the last PPV as well before the Hardys got freed up earlier than expected). It’s nice to see that no one is learning anything.
The match was great, as we all knew it would be with the talent involved, but it didn’t feel very exciting because it never once felt like LIJ had a snowballs chance in hell of walking out with the belts. Naito continues to impress, busting out new stuff all the time. There was one spot in this match that I really hated, which involved a blinded Jackson brother nailing people with superkicks: first Naito and BUSHI, and then he hit his brother when his brother tried to come over and Too Sweet him, and then referee Paul Turner, with neither of the latter two having ever even touched him. Firstly, I just can’t buy that his superkicks at THAT accurate that he can nail four people in a row while blinded, and without having any frame of reference of where the second two were other than their voices in a large, noisy room. The idea of him kicking both his brother and the referee was also stupid because he had just kicked two people! Who else did he think was there? And especially- and this is key- neither of those two actually touched him, so all he was going on was sound… and the sounds in question would have been men speaking perfect English in a match where he knows that both of his opponents to not come close to it. Thirdly, and, in a way, worst of all, it felt like a spot that was done for the sake of doing it rather than something that made sense in the story. It didn’t add anything to the match or really even effect much of anything. It was just a pointless ref bump and a pointless “whoops, I kicked my own partner” spot done for the combination of shock value and to get in more f*cking superkicks.

ADAM COLE vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI- 6.25/10
This is almost certainly Adam Cole’s last high-profile ROH match (I think he’s scheduled for the TV tapings on Sunday, but that’s it), and he received not only a pathetically small amount of streamers, but the fans completely failed to all throw them at anything close to the same time, so it didn’t look anywhere near as cool. He also had an extremely disappointing match with Tanahashi. In large part that is because they didn’t even get fourteen minutes (but that stupid three-way tag definitely had to be on the show. Right.) This felt like first ten minutes of a really great forty-minute match and then the final three minutes of that same match with none of the in between.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- The Young Bucks show up and tease superkicking Cole but then he turns around and they celebrate with him instead. Then the lights go out and we get a video from Kenny Omega on the SinclairTron and did an excellent job with a promo that felt like it was live even though we all know it wasn’t. I’ll get into some details on why I thought Kenny was excellent here in a moment, but I really dislike the direction this is all going in, which is as follows: Marty Scurll has joined the Bullet Club and Kenny is sending him after Cole. Marty appeared with Kenny on the Tron. Then the lights went off and took absolutely f*cking forever to go back on. When they did, Scurll was standing in the ring and reveals himself to be the newest member of the n.W.o. The Bucks appear shocked by this but then they superkick Cole, Marty hits Cole with umbrella and he and the Bucks pose over Cole’s dead body.
First the good:
-Kenny Omega. His delivery and verbiage were both excellent, and if he hadn’t made a comment about being disappointed in the Bucks this would have had a lot more of an obnoxious Russo-swerve vibe.
Now the bad:
- Whoever came up with the idea of having Marty Scurll appear in the video with Kenny is a f*cking idiot. It both created the logic hole of requiring him to have magical powers of teleportation to get from Omega’s secret lair (you know he has one) to the ring, and it completely spoiled the surprise of what was about to happen, which made the whole lights off/teleportation thing pointless. It would have been much better to have Kenny’s verbiage serve as the hint for what was about to happen so that those that did figure it out would be able to feel smart by figuring it out right before it happened and that those who didn’t figure it out would actually be surprised when Scurll showed up to attack Cole. It also made Marty’s whole “I’m in Bullet Club” reveal spot with the umbrella before he hit Cole completely anti-climactic. It would have been A LOT better to have Marty not appear in the video and not do the second lights off thing, either. Have the lights come back on and then have Scurll quickly pop out from the crowd, run in, and hit Cole with the umbrella FROM BEHIND (all stopping right in front of him did here was give Cole time to defend himself. If the Bucks hadn’t been loyal- as Kenny’s promo hinted that he didn’t think they were being- Cole would have had ample time to either escape or attack Marty while Marty was pointlessly standing in front of Cole basically saying “I am about to attack you and kick you out of Bullet Club). THEN you can have Marty open his umbrella to reveal the Bullet Club logo. Then I would have the Bucks tease superkicking Marty before decided to remain in Bullet Club and instead join in on giving Cole a beat-down before they all posed over his corpse.
-Scurll just successfully defended his title against Cole last month, so sticking them in a feud will just tie up the TV Title rather than give us good, built-up title defenses where people think there is a snowball’s chance of the title changing hands.
-I really dislike the general concept of just throwing Scurll into Bullet Club, from both an ROH and New Japan perspective. In New Japan it’s really just kind of annoying at this point. They basically did this same thing with Zack Sabre Jr. two months ago when he joined Suzuki-Gun and they just had Cody join Bullet Club in December even though he really doesn’t fit as part of the group. They are now up to ELEVEN members, and that’s after they just lost Cody Hall and nobody even noticed! I didn’t even notice. I had literally typed “twelve if Cody Hall ever comes back from his injury” and then Googled him to find out his condition and it was only then that I learned that he has started working for NOAH and thus isn’t with New Japan anymore. And this eleven-member heel faction is already on top of the nine-member heel Suzuki-Gun and the five-member heel LIJ. They don’t need any more guys!
From an ROH perspective, I’m quite sick of Bullet Club on an entirely different axis. For the past year ROH has felt like they’ve thrown everything all in on Bullet Club. One year ago they threw an entire PPV main event under the bus to kick this thing off- killing Colt Cabana’s big return dead and destroying whatever interest was left for the Lethal-Briscoe so-called “biggest rematch in ROH history” that they ran for the following PPV. I had no problem with them putting the ROH World Title on Adam Cole, since it made natural sense for O’Reilly to win from Cole to finally pay off the feud they had started the previous fall, but I really disliked the way that the Young Bucks were inserted into the tag title picture in the middle of what felt like it should have been a very personal feud between The Addiction and the Motor City Machine Guns. I’m not saying that the results of that (specifically the Ladder War) weren’t great, but it felt like they stuffed the Bucks in there just so they could make Bullet Club the champions rather than letting The Addiction and MCMG finish their feud and then have the Bucks win the belts at the next show.
Then they had Kyle lose the belt right back to Cole in his first defense just so Cole could lose it to Daniels in an angle that involved Kazarian joining Bullet Club as a ruse. Other than that angle and three other feuds- Cody vs. Lethal, Cody vs. Daniels, and the short Hardys vs. Bucks feud- all of which involve Bullet Club, the entire promotion has been spinning its wheels. TV Champion Marty Scurll in particular has been a source of disappointment to many, having won the TV Title on his first weekend in the company, has gone the intervening six month until now defending in random matches against a series of challengers who all had little to no build and all clearly got the title shot because they either weren’t on the ROH roster or were about to leave the company. And now, after six months, he finally has an angle… and it involves him joining Bullet Club. It feels like Bullet Club is inadvertently sucking the life out of ROH, and at this point I just want it to go away.
-The other thing I didn’t like about this angle (and about Bullet Club in ROH in general) is best summed up by the following fact. Despite being a member of the heel Bullet Club, Adam Cole has been a very popular character in ROH, always getting cheered. The Young Buck just turned on Cole and he was kicked out of Bullet Club… and everybody cheered. Just like they have done every single time Bullet Club has done something dastardly. HEEL BULLET CLUB DOES NOT WORK IN ROH! So why does Delirious keep booking it?!



But at least this all means that Adam Cole is sticking around for a bit, so that’s good.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Christopher Daniels(c) vs. Jay Lethal vs. Cody Rhodes- 7.5/10
They did a good job of telling the standard story of the third man always coming in at the last second to break things up, and they used this to great effect to make the false finishes that came after Daniels had seemingly been taken out via table bump seem more exciting, then paid it off well by having Daniels pin Cody while Cody himself was neutralizing Lethal via American Nightmare. That being said, while the match was certainly exciting at many points and the story was well-told, it just didn’t reach that ROH main event level. Probably because Delirious ONCE AGAIN shortchanged a main event because he booked WAY too many matches on a PPV. I think at this point the verdict on Cody is that while he is a very good personality he just doesn’t have the ability to be a main event singles star in a theoretically work-rate heavy promotion like ROH.


This was yet another disappointing PPV from ROH. The only matches that delivered to or exceeded the level they needed to be at were White vs. Ospreay, which was a totally random match between two babyfaces that had zero build to it, and the TV Title match, which had very little build and featured a man not even on the roster. The completely pointless three-way tag match I ranted about above? That got nine minutes. The SIX matches on the card above it- which includes FOUR title matches and a first and almost certainly only time ever match between Cole and Tanahashi- all got between thirteen and fourteen. Aside from the main event and Kaz vs. Page (which are really part of the same feud) the only match that received any sort of build at all was Scurll vs. Sydal which got one angle, and the main event was the only one of the four title matches where the outcome ever seemed in doubt. This show was not only a waste of a PPV, but was itself hurt by being forced into the three-hour PPV time window. Meanwhile, coming out of this, the only direction anyone seem to have is Page vs. Kaz and Cole vs. Bullet Club. There is lots of talent in this company, but everyone is getting dragged down because none of it belongs to the guy with the pencil.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Ian Riccaboni referred to both EVIL & Sanada and Gresham & Sabin, neither of whom have ever teamed before in ROH as “top teams,” the same descriptor he used for former ROH World Tag Team Champions and current IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions War Machine.

2. Kevin Kelly tries to tell us that CHAOS’ feud against Suzuki-Gun has helped prepare them for this No DQs match.
You mean the feud that has had a grant total of ZERO gimmick matches and where the babyfaces are never the ones using the weapons? How, exactly?
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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by cero2k » May 15th, '17, 10:39

Big Red Machine wrote:
NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLES: The Brisoces & Bully Ray(c) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & Roppongi Vice)- 6.25/10
So the challengers come out like normal and the Briscoes come out like normal but Bully Ray has to start all the way up in the balcony (again, a waste of time on a PPV) and come through the crowd, and of course they’re all chanting “ECW! ECW!” which is exactly why any promotion that wants to look big league and look like it’s growing and look like the promotion of the future shouldn’t be bringing Bully Ray into your promotion in 2017. Even if he’s working these shows for free (which I can guarantee you he isn’t) he’s still not worth having because of the damage it does to the brand.
he's a big name that people like and can still go, he's not really damaging the brand. Of all things ROH right now,
Ray is not the one making the harm.


Then Bully starts talking, wasting even more time. Yes, we all know that we’re in New York City and we all know that you’re Bully Ray. Now shut the f*ck up, get your fat ass down to the ring and start WRESTLING. Bully announces that this match is no No DQs because apparently that’s what people want to see. Well if they wanted to see no DQs matches for no reason why did they buy tickets to ROH as opposed to, say, CZW?
You'd be surprised how much has CZW reduced their deathmatch stuff, they have really turned a page. Lio Rush is their champion

This is, like, the fourth time that Bully has done this sort of thing in ROH, and he’s only been in the company for about eight shows. And if, for some reason, you HAVE to do a No DQs match, why not ANNOUNCE IT IN ADVANCE, SO YOU CAN SELL MORE TICKETS/PPV BUYS? If garbage matches are truly what people want to see as Bully claims, why not ADVERTISE THEM?
Do you honestly think that advertising a match as a no DQs is gonna sell an extra ticket ? not in 2017

ADAM COLE vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI- 6.25/10

-Scurll just successfully defended his title against Cole last month, so sticking them in a feud will just tie up the TV Title rather than give us good, built-up title defenses where people think there is a snowball’s chance of the title changing hands.
But at least this all means that Adam Cole is sticking around for a bit, so that’s good.
Not at all, no one has been kicked out of Bullet Club and lived to tell the tale, they've all been sent to be just another guy at WWE. He's is definitely debuting at NXT Chicago

-I really dislike the general concept of just throwing Scurll into Bullet Club, from both an ROH and New Japan perspective. In New Japan it’s really just kind of annoying at this point. They basically did this same thing with Zack Sabre Jr. two months ago when he joined Suzuki-Gun and they just had Cody join Bullet Club in December even though he really doesn’t fit as part of the group. They are now up to ELEVEN members, and that’s after they just lost Cody Hall and nobody even noticed! I didn’t even notice. I had literally typed “twelve if Cody Hall ever comes back from his injury” and then Googled him to find out his condition and it was only then that I learned that he has started working for NOAH and thus isn’t with New Japan anymore. And this eleven-member heel faction is already on top of the nine-member heel Suzuki-Gun and the five-member heel LIJ. They don’t need any more guys!
that's a NJPW or Japan thing, everyone has a stable, even the good guys call themselves Taguhi Japan and the Old timers all hang out together.

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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 15th, '17, 11:25

cero2k wrote:
Big Red Machine wrote:
NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLES: The Brisoces & Bully Ray(c) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & Roppongi Vice)- 6.25/10
So the challengers come out like normal and the Briscoes come out like normal but Bully Ray has to start all the way up in the balcony (again, a waste of time on a PPV) and come through the crowd, and of course they’re all chanting “ECW! ECW!” which is exactly why any promotion that wants to look big league and look like it’s growing and look like the promotion of the future shouldn’t be bringing Bully Ray into your promotion in 2017. Even if he’s working these shows for free (which I can guarantee you he isn’t) he’s still not worth having because of the damage it does to the brand.
he's a big name that people like and can still go, he's not really damaging the brand. Of all things ROH right now, Ray is not the one making the harm.
He can't go. He is yet to have a single very good match, and that is even with tagging with the freakin' Briscoes. He always shows up and cuts the same lazy promo to make something randomly a hardcore match, then proceeds to have the same lazy-ass hardcore match in which he gets hit with stuff for a while then gets his sh*t in and usually wins. This is ROH. If you can't go in a regular match then you shouldn't be here.
Having him in the promotion does damage the brand. It both further removes ROH from its roots as a place for good, modern, wrestling, and as a place where new stars are made rather than old stars brought in because they might have some name value. Remember what happened to TNA? When the company of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, AMW, and the X-Division became the company of Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Sting, and several of the world's most pathetic and unwanted ECW reunions? Well Bully Ray as a singles act is a MUCH smaller name that Scott Steiner, Sting, or Kevin Nash, and I honestly think Scott Steiner would probably be putting on better matches right now.


Then Bully starts talking, wasting even more time. Yes, we all know that we’re in New York City and we all know that you’re Bully Ray. Now shut the f*ck up, get your fat ass down to the ring and start WRESTLING. Bully announces that this match is no No DQs because apparently that’s what people want to see. Well if they wanted to see no DQs matches for no reason why did they buy tickets to ROH as opposed to, say, CZW?
You'd be surprised how much has CZW reduced their deathmatch stuff, they have really turned a page. Lio Rush is their champion
I'm well aware. DJ Hyde and especially Emil Jay have done a very good job with the place. It shouldn't be forgotten that before ROH or PWG got their hands on him it was CZW that first gave Adam Cole the chance run with the ball. My statement wasn't intended as an indictment on CZW. They were just a convenient local promotion where any match could theoretically involve the legal use of weapons whereas ROH has standard rules. If you're buying a ticket to ROH in the hopes that things might turn hardcore, then you should be going to a hardcore promotion instead.

This is, like, the fourth time that Bully has done this sort of thing in ROH, and he’s only been in the company for about eight shows. And if, for some reason, you HAVE to do a No DQs match, why not ANNOUNCE IT IN ADVANCE, SO YOU CAN SELL MORE TICKETS/PPV BUYS? If garbage matches are truly what people want to see as Bully claims, why not ADVERTISE THEM?
Do you honestly think that advertising a match as a no DQs is gonna sell an extra ticket ? not in 2017
Yes. If you're a hardcore fan for whom the idea of Scurll vs. Sydal or Cole vs. Tanahashi etc. isn't much of a draw, telling people that you've got Bubba Ray Dudley and the Briscoes hitting people with stuff (and with RPG Vice coming off of their excellent street fight at the Anniversary Show with the Bucks and Hardys) then I think it might.
But even if it doesn't, there's still the principle of the thing. You shouldn't be booking gimmick matches for absolutely no reason- especially in ROH. And again, it's a waste of PPV time, and having the fans chant from a promotion that's been dead for sixteen years and for which people even got tired of reunion shows more than five years ago is an absolutely terrible look for a promotion that is trying to look hip and cool and cutting edge.

ADAM COLE vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI- 6.25/10

-Scurll just successfully defended his title against Cole last month, so sticking them in a feud will just tie up the TV Title rather than give us good, built-up title defenses where people think there is a snowball’s chance of the title changing hands.
But at least this all means that Adam Cole is sticking around for a bit, so that’s good.
Not at all, no one has been kicked out of Bullet Club and lived to tell the tale, they've all been sent to be just another guy at WWE. He's is definitely debuting at NXT Chicago
This feels like too big of an angle to not follow up on, especially with the next PPV just a month away and TV tapings two days from now.
Also, remember about a year ago when you and I had that debate over the merits of them giving AJ a happy send-off with his Bullet CLub buddies even after AJ had been kicked out of the company? If they were willing to ignore continuity to give AJ a happy send-of with his friends, surely they'd be willing to just give Cole a happy sendoff without needing to break kayfabe at all. A Scurll turn could have been saved for the TV tapings and done to anyone, but they specifically set this segment up for Cole and specifically had the Bucks turn on him while making clear that Omega had ordered them to do so. They also set it up a bit on the TV beforehand. There was no reason to do that unless they were trying to get something out of it. Also, there was no reason for Cole not to put Jay White over in Milwaukee and not to go down to Taven's finisher in Hopkins unless they specifically didn't want this to start feeling like the Adam Cole "job before you leave but we won't acknowledge that you're leaving so it doesn't feel special a la Danielson" tour.


-I really dislike the general concept of just throwing Scurll into Bullet Club, from both an ROH and New Japan perspective. In New Japan it’s really just kind of annoying at this point. They basically did this same thing with Zack Sabre Jr. two months ago when he joined Suzuki-Gun and they just had Cody join Bullet Club in December even though he really doesn’t fit as part of the group. They are now up to ELEVEN members, and that’s after they just lost Cody Hall and nobody even noticed! I didn’t even notice. I had literally typed “twelve if Cody Hall ever comes back from his injury” and then Googled him to find out his condition and it was only then that I learned that he has started working for NOAH and thus isn’t with New Japan anymore. And this eleven-member heel faction is already on top of the nine-member heel Suzuki-Gun and the five-member heel LIJ. They don’t need any more guys!
that's a NJPW or Japan thing, everyone has a stable, even the good guys call themselves Taguhi Japan and the Old timers all hang out together.
Taguchi Japan just started this year, and I don't think that either Elgin, Juice or KUSHIDA are members (and two of those guys constitute pretty big names). reDRagon never had a stable affiliation, Yoshitatsu doesn't have one, nor does Liger or any of the Tiger Masks, and Shibata didn't for a very long time. Taguchi Japan doesn't feel like an "everyone must have a stable" rule thing so much as it does a goofy name. Taguchi Japan wouldn't exist if the NEVER six-man titles didn't exist. And I don't meat that as in "they never would have formed if they weren't going after the titles," I'm saying New Japan wouldn't have felt compelled to give them a name if they weren't gong for the titles.
And even if that is a rule, it's a very stupid one and they need to get rid of it. It makes the cards feel WAY too rigid.

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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by cero2k » May 15th, '17, 13:52

Big Red Machine wrote:He can't go. He is yet to have a single very good match, and that is even with tagging with the freakin' Briscoes. He always shows up and cuts the same lazy promo to make something randomly a hardcore match, then proceeds to have the same lazy-ass hardcore match in which he gets hit with stuff for a while then gets his sh*t in and usually wins. This is ROH. If you can't go in a regular match then you shouldn't be here.
Having him in the promotion does damage the brand. It both further removes ROH from its roots as a place for good, modern, wrestling, and as a place where new stars are made rather than old stars brought in because they might have some name value. Remember what happened to TNA? When the company of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, AMW, and the X-Division became the company of Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Sting, and several of the world's most pathetic and unwanted ECW reunions? Well Bully Ray as a singles act is a MUCH smaller name that Scott Steiner, Sting, or Kevin Nash, and I honestly think Scott Steiner would probably be putting on better matches right now.

It's not like Ray is taking someone's spot or winning the world title either. ROH was removed from his roots a looooong time ago, now everyone has as good wrestling as them, and the whole honor thing hasn't been properly respected since the days of Pearce booking or even before.



I'm well aware. DJ Hyde and especially Emil Jay have done a very good job with the place. It shouldn't be forgotten that before ROH or PWG got their hands on him it was CZW that first gave Adam Cole the chance run with the ball. My statement wasn't intended as an indictment on CZW. They were just a convenient local promotion where any match could theoretically involve the legal use of weapons whereas ROH has standard rules. If you're buying a ticket to ROH in the hopes that things might turn hardcore, then you should be going to a hardcore promotion instead.

Yes. If you're a hardcore fan for whom the idea of Scurll vs. Sydal or Cole vs. Tanahashi etc. isn't much of a draw, telling people that you've got Bubba Ray Dudley and the Briscoes hitting people with stuff (and with RPG Vice coming off of their excellent street fight at the Anniversary Show with the Bucks and Hardys) then I think it might.
But even if it doesn't, there's still the principle of the thing. You shouldn't be booking gimmick matches for absolutely no reason- especially in ROH. And again, it's a waste of PPV time, and having the fans chant from a promotion that's been dead for sixteen years and for which people even got tired of reunion shows more than five years ago is an absolutely terrible look for a promotion that is trying to look hip and cool and cutting edge.

I find it hard to find that there are many people like this that would really make a difference. I can see people not going to deathmatches, but deathmatch-exclusive fans i don't see many anymore. Furthermore, I don't know the numbers the show brought, but i'm sure that exclusive type of fan wouldn't make a difference in today's ROH. Now, if it did, then Bully Ray is definitely bringing in people and that is good for ROH.


This feels like too big of an angle to not follow up on, especially with the next PPV just a month away and TV tapings two days from now.
Also, remember about a year ago when you and I had that debate over the merits of them giving AJ a happy send-off with his Bullet CLub buddies even after AJ had been kicked out of the company? If they were willing to ignore continuity to give AJ a happy send-of with his friends, surely they'd be willing to just give Cole a happy sendoff without needing to break kayfabe at all. A Scurll turn could have been saved for the TV tapings and done to anyone, but they specifically set this segment up for Cole and specifically had the Bucks turn on him while making clear that Omega had ordered them to do so. They also set it up a bit on the TV beforehand. There was no reason to do that unless they were trying to get something out of it. Also, there was no reason for Cole not to put Jay White over in Milwaukee and not to go down to Taven's finisher in Hopkins unless they specifically didn't want this to start feeling like the Adam Cole "job before you leave but we won't acknowledge that you're leaving so it doesn't feel special a la Danielson" tour.

Cole worked last night's tapings, but just like AJ, i can see a happy ending thing, but not a full program. And I wouldn't be surprised his send off is a dark segment or something uneventful like Roddys's

Taguchi Japan just started this year, and I don't think that either Elgin, Juice or KUSHIDA are members (and two of those guys constitute pretty big names). reDRagon never had a stable affiliation, Yoshitatsu doesn't have one, nor does Liger or any of the Tiger Masks, and Shibata didn't for a very long time. Taguchi Japan doesn't feel like an "everyone must have a stable" rule thing so much as it does a goofy name. Taguchi Japan wouldn't exist if the NEVER six-man titles didn't exist. And I don't meat that as in "they never would have formed if they weren't going after the titles," I'm saying New Japan wouldn't have felt compelled to give them a name if they weren't gong for the titles.
And even if that is a rule, it's a very stupid one and they need to get rid of it. It makes the cards feel WAY too rigid.
OK, i probably exaggerated with 'everyone', but for the most part 'everyone' is part of a team of some sorts, they're all large teams with representation in each division.

Elgin, Tatsu, Juice, and Kushida are all Taguchi Japan. (+ Nakanichi, Tanahashi, Taguchi, Finlay, Dragon Lee, and Ricochet).I'll give you Shibata and reDragon, but even then, it seemed like they were about to become a trio before reDragon took off.


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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 15th, '17, 18:00

cero2k wrote:
Big Red Machine wrote:He can't go. He is yet to have a single very good match, and that is even with tagging with the freakin' Briscoes. He always shows up and cuts the same lazy promo to make something randomly a hardcore match, then proceeds to have the same lazy-ass hardcore match in which he gets hit with stuff for a while then gets his sh*t in and usually wins. This is ROH. If you can't go in a regular match then you shouldn't be here.
Having him in the promotion does damage the brand. It both further removes ROH from its roots as a place for good, modern, wrestling, and as a place where new stars are made rather than old stars brought in because they might have some name value. Remember what happened to TNA? When the company of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, AMW, and the X-Division became the company of Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Sting, and several of the world's most pathetic and unwanted ECW reunions? Well Bully Ray as a singles act is a MUCH smaller name that Scott Steiner, Sting, or Kevin Nash, and I honestly think Scott Steiner would probably be putting on better matches right now.

It's not like Ray is taking someone's spot or winning the world title either.
The fact that he's not "taking someone's spot" is down to the fact that Delirious has let the roster expand WAY too much. Half of these guys shouldn't even be regulars, but Delirious just keeps signing guys anyway, and as a result the 75% of the matches on most of the shows feel like they've been booked for the explicit purpose of trying to fit everyone onto the show rather than having been booked for an actual reason. And while he might not take up someone's spot, having to fit him in contributes to the problem of matches not getting enough time. Maybe a guy like Page or Rush or Martinez or Silas or Kenny King or Dijak or Taven (need I go on?) would be able to have that star-making break-out match if they were able to have twenty-five minutes instead of twelve.

ROH was removed from his roots a looooong time ago, now everyone has as good wrestling as them, and the whole honor thing hasn't been properly respected since the days of Pearce booking or even before.

It's not about the quality of the wrestling as compared to everyone else. It's about the overall quality of the wrestling in ROH, and yes, about the whole "honor" thing. The number of gimmick matches for no reason or sh*t just being changed to No DQs matches right beforehand for no real reason, or bait-and-switches on the cards, and all manner of f*ck finishes have sky-rocketed over the past two or three years. Yes, Pearce definitely booked gimmick matches more frequently than Gabe did, but he didn't book them on every freakin' show, almost always made a big deal out of them, and always did them in hot feuds. It was Jimmy Jacobs vs. former AOTF guys or Steen & Generico vs. Wolves or The Embassy vs. Necro Butcher.
Yes, the Code of Honor hasn't been treated as law like in the early days in a long time, but when Gabe or Pearce or Cornette or even pre-2015 Delirious moved away from it, you would have never seen the babyface/heel dynamic-based hypocrisy that we see from the announcers, and you would never see situations where the wrestlers in the ring played that dynamic out in such an ass-backwards way.
The "Honor" in ROH is about more than just following the Code of Honor. It's a promise that there is going to be, as Lance Storm once put it "no bullsh*t finishes." That was the whole reason for the Code of Honor existing in the first place. Gabe (correctly) thought that fans were getting sick and tired of Attitude Era/ECW copious run-ins and WCW-style DQs and count-outs just because someone with stroke didn't want to do a job, so he created this mechanism that made sense within kayfabe but more importantly functioned as a guarantee to the fans outside of kayfabe that you weren't going to get f*cked over on a finish, especially in a big match. You might not like who wins, but you won't be able to deny that within kayfabe, the winning wrestler/team was the better man/team on that night (and this, combined with the emphasis on a more... how I shall I say this? non-plunder-filled style of wrestling gave the promotion its identity).
That bullsh*t non-finish Bullet Club invasion at Global Wars last year? That's only the second time I can think of that an ROH main event just ended without any sort of finish. The only other one was at Killer Instinct, which was a "mere" house show, and the backlash to that was bad enough to get Cornette fired as booker. Going through all of ROHs PPV, and iPPVs I can recall interference in a main event a total of six times in the first thirty-nine ROH PPVs (and three of those occurred during the SCUM angle, where we had a stable whose gimmick was that they were trying to pervert ROH and get rid of its honor). Of the fourteen most recent ones (basically since the beginning of 2015) there have been SEVEN. Fans are losing faith in the company, and it shows in the attendance. The best example is Chicago, where the non-finish PPV main event was. The two shows before that had each drawn 1,200. The PPV drew 2,000. The next show after the non-finish? 700. For comparison, ROH's first show in Chicago, way back in 2004, did 650. Attendance has been down over the past eighteen months- especially if you factor out SCOH, New Japan shows, and the overseas shows. Fans are not happy.





I'm well aware. DJ Hyde and especially Emil Jay have done a very good job with the place. It shouldn't be forgotten that before ROH or PWG got their hands on him it was CZW that first gave Adam Cole the chance run with the ball. My statement wasn't intended as an indictment on CZW. They were just a convenient local promotion where any match could theoretically involve the legal use of weapons whereas ROH has standard rules. If you're buying a ticket to ROH in the hopes that things might turn hardcore, then you should be going to a hardcore promotion instead.

Yes. If you're a hardcore fan for whom the idea of Scurll vs. Sydal or Cole vs. Tanahashi etc. isn't much of a draw, telling people that you've got Bubba Ray Dudley and the Briscoes hitting people with stuff (and with RPG Vice coming off of their excellent street fight at the Anniversary Show with the Bucks and Hardys) then I think it might.
But even if it doesn't, there's still the principle of the thing. You shouldn't be booking gimmick matches for absolutely no reason- especially in ROH. And again, it's a waste of PPV time, and having the fans chant from a promotion that's been dead for sixteen years and for which people even got tired of reunion shows more than five years ago is an absolutely terrible look for a promotion that is trying to look hip and cool and cutting edge.

I find it hard to find that there are many people like this that would really make a difference. I can see people not going to deathmatches, but deathmatch-exclusive fans i don't see many anymore. Furthermore, I don't know the numbers the show brought, but i'm sure that exclusive type of fan wouldn't make a difference in today's ROH. Now, if it did, then Bully Ray is definitely bringing in people and that is good for ROH.
Yes, those people are probably few and far between, but if they do exist then there is no reason to ignore them when you lose nothing by not doing so. Also, it is again the principle of the thing. Bully is having sh*tty matches, even with the smoke and mirrors provided by doing this crap every night. It also hurts the ability of a gimmick match to draw by making it feel less special. There is a reason that Ladder War means so much while people role their eyes and just say "oh. It's another Ladder Match" when TNA does one.
As for the claim that Bully is drawing, there is no evidence to support that at all. The only shows where he was the only new big name have been the Baltimore taping, Unauthorized, and Masters of the Craft. Unauthorized only drew 650, which is a lot worse than ROH had been doing in Baltimore two years ago. It is up a grand total of 50 fans from the last time ROH ran there, but the last time they ran there they didn't have the Bucks, Cole, or Scurll, either, and all of those guys were on the card this time. Unauthorized did the same 750 they've been doing in Milwaukee forever. Masters of the Craft did about 900, which is up significantly from what they did last time they were there, but show also didn't have Cole, Scurll, or Anderson, and everything I've heard from people who were live at Masters of the Craft was giving Anderson credit for the bump in the gate because he has a wrestling school in the area so he's basically a local guy, plus he had students working the show so they also helped sell the tickets to family members. It's also worth noting that the 900 they drew this time is down from what they did in their best showing in Hopkins which was Conquest Tour: Hopkins in 2015, and that show didn't have any of the guys I've mentioned above (including Bully) or the Young Bucks.



This feels like too big of an angle to not follow up on, especially with the next PPV just a month away and TV tapings two days from now.
Also, remember about a year ago when you and I had that debate over the merits of them giving AJ a happy send-off with his Bullet CLub buddies even after AJ had been kicked out of the company? If they were willing to ignore continuity to give AJ a happy send-of with his friends, surely they'd be willing to just give Cole a happy sendoff without needing to break kayfabe at all. A Scurll turn could have been saved for the TV tapings and done to anyone, but they specifically set this segment up for Cole and specifically had the Bucks turn on him while making clear that Omega had ordered them to do so. They also set it up a bit on the TV beforehand. There was no reason to do that unless they were trying to get something out of it. Also, there was no reason for Cole not to put Jay White over in Milwaukee and not to go down to Taven's finisher in Hopkins unless they specifically didn't want this to start feeling like the Adam Cole "job before you leave but we won't acknowledge that you're leaving so it doesn't feel special a la Danielson" tour.

Cole worked last night's tapings, but just like AJ, i can see a happy ending thing, but not a full program. And I wouldn't be surprised his send off is a dark segment or something uneventful like Roddys's
Hidden text.
He lost clean to Page for TV, then used magical powers to cost Scurll the TV Title,then lost a "Web Exclusive" Street Fight to Scurll via interference because Delirious is too dumb to have him put Scurll over clean on his way out. So not a happy ending.

And that fact that Roddy's goodbye was as pathetic as it was was completely disgraceful.

Taguchi Japan just started this year, and I don't think that either Elgin, Juice or KUSHIDA are members (and two of those guys constitute pretty big names). reDRagon never had a stable affiliation, Yoshitatsu doesn't have one, nor does Liger or any of the Tiger Masks, and Shibata didn't for a very long time. Taguchi Japan doesn't feel like an "everyone must have a stable" rule thing so much as it does a goofy name. Taguchi Japan wouldn't exist if the NEVER six-man titles didn't exist. And I don't meat that as in "they never would have formed if they weren't going after the titles," I'm saying New Japan wouldn't have felt compelled to give them a name if they weren't gong for the titles.
And even if that is a rule, it's a very stupid one and they need to get rid of it. It makes the cards feel WAY too rigid.
OK, i probably exaggerated with 'everyone', but for the most part 'everyone' is part of a team of some sorts, they're all large teams with representation in each division.

Elgin, Tatsu, Juice, and Kushida are all Taguchi Japan. (+ Nakanichi, Tanahashi, Taguchi, Finlay, Dragon Lee, and Ricochet).I'll give you Shibata and reDragon, but even then, it seemed like they were about to become a trio before reDragon took off.

And Shibata was hanging out with the Grumpy Old Men after earning their respect via his feud with Nagata. But the point stands that it's a dumb rule.

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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by cero2k » May 16th, '17, 17:36

i liked all of that about the Code of Honor between fans and ROH, you should right a column about it and we'll send it to ROH
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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 16th, '17, 20:35

cero2k wrote:i liked all of that about the Code of Honor between fans and ROH, you should right a column about it and we'll send it to ROH

So I'm actually about two thirds of the way through a "catharsis" re: ROH, and the only section I have left to right is basically an expanded version of that. i hope to have it ready by the end of the week.
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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by cero2k » May 16th, '17, 21:24

Big Red Machine wrote:
cero2k wrote:i liked all of that about the Code of Honor between fans and ROH, you should right a column about it and we'll send it to ROH

So I'm actually about two thirds of the way through a "catharsis" re: ROH, and the only section I have left to right is basically an expanded version of that. i hope to have it ready by the end of the week.

today i read a similar write up called "ROH has become everything ROH hated" or something like that. His points were not good because it became an anti-Daniels shtick, but that title plus your points made me think this could be a good column right now
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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 16th, '17, 21:54

cero2k wrote:
Big Red Machine wrote:
cero2k wrote:i liked all of that about the Code of Honor between fans and ROH, you should right a column about it and we'll send it to ROH

So I'm actually about two thirds of the way through a "catharsis" re: ROH, and the only section I have left to right is basically an expanded version of that. i hope to have it ready by the end of the week.

today i read a similar write up called "ROH has become everything ROH hated" or something like that. His points were not good because it became an anti-Daniels shtick, but that title plus your points made me think this could be a good column right now

Was it just about Daniels or was there more to it?
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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by cero2k » May 16th, '17, 23:00

Big Red Machine wrote:
cero2k wrote:
Big Red Machine wrote:So I'm actually about two thirds of the way through a "catharsis" re: ROH, and the only section I have left to right is basically an expanded version of that. i hope to have it ready by the end of the week.

today i read a similar write up called "ROH has become everything ROH hated" or something like that. His points were not good because it became an anti-Daniels shtick, but that title plus your points made me think this could be a good column right now

Was it just about Daniels or was there more to it?

it was that same angle about ROH becoming TNA for bringing guys like Cody and Ray and putting titles on Daniels while guys like Rush were wasted. How they're talent scouting had really gone down, but the person did focus a but on how even though Daniels is great, he was an old timer for ROH standards
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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 22nd, '17, 12:42

Well... this kind of confirms that Cole is leaving:

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Re: BRM Reviews ROH War of the Worlds 2017 (disappointing)

Post by cero2k » May 22nd, '17, 13:17

yeap, and I think NXT is taping on wednesday
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