BRM Reviews the 5/21/2021 ROH (half and half)

[Big Red Machine]

QUINN MCKAY CUTS A LITTLE PROMO THANKING EVERYONE FOR SUPPORTING HER IN HER MATCH AND TELLING US THAT IT WON’T BE HER LAST MATCH- This would have been fine if the finish didn’t make her look like such an idiot.

Quinn pitched to the first match, but instead we cut to…

MATT TAVEN IS INJURED IN THE BACK- odd
Michael Bennett asks him what happened and he says he doesn’t know. He somehow smashed his ankle. So there was no attack? He just accidentally banging his foot into something?

FRED YEHI PROMO- weird
He talked about “purity” and possibly being “anti-pure” before talking about being himself. Also, he was wearing glasses where one eye had a reflective lens and the other hand nothing at all. This across like someone trying really hard to be artsy.

PURE RULES MATCH: Rocky Romero vs. Fred Yehi- 7/10
Cheeseburger was on commentary for this match. He will face the winner in what will probably be a de facto #1 contendership match. Lots of great wrestling here. Yehi got the win with fewer than thirty seconds to go.

BACKSTAGE MATT TAVEN INSISTS TO MIKE BENNETT THAT HE IS GOOD TO GO TONIGHT- bad
Taven keeps saying that it took them so long to get their first title shot and they’ve been waiting five years to get another one, so he doesn’t just want to give this one away. If they have fairly earned this title shot (and they have) why wouldn’t management just reschedule their title shot when he is healthy?

FLIP GORDON CALLS OUT RUSH BUT GETS EC III INSTEAD- fine
As far as I can remember, this is he first time since the pandemic that we’ve had someone come out and cut a promo in the ring. It felt kind of important just for that reason. Flip has had the world title shot he won at Free Enterprise “in his back pocket,” as the announcers have liked to say, and he now wants to cash it in. Instead of Rush, however, EC III comes out. The announcers reminded us that Flip and Ethan faced the Briscoes two weeks ago and Flip cheated to win, which Ethan didn’t know at the time but now knows because he has since watched the footage.
Ethan gets in his face, looks him right in the eye, and tells him “you have been warned” and then leaves. Flip also left, I guess fearing that Ethan would screw his title shot up.

THE FOUNDATION PROMO- interesting
Tracy Williams and Rhett Titus were cutting a promo about tonight being their first title defense when stablemate Jay Lethal interrupted them and told them Taven had been “attacked” backstage. That’s not what Taven said had happened… although, given the fact that this is pro wrestling, it’s possible Lethal is just making an assumption. Rhett and Tracy were insistent that the fair thing to do would be to reschedule the match, and Lethal said he agreed… but he also told them that Taen still wants it tonight, and that if Taven wants it tonight, they shouldn’t take it away from him.
I think the idea here is pretty clearly to at least make us think that Lethal attacked Taven, as compromising the Foundation’s values in order to facilitate their greater goal of restoring honor to ROH feels like exactly the direction Lethal’s character has been heading in. The problem, unfortunately, lies in Taven’s comments earlier that he didn’t know what happened and that his ankle just “smashed into” something. It’s pretty hard to attack someone’s ankle without them knowing that they have been attacked, and I don’t think Lethal has telekinetic powers or an invisibility cloak or something like that. ROH doesn’t even have those big, rolling equipment cases that he could theoretically hide behind and shove into someone’s ankle. For that, I’m really hoping that this is just Lethal making an assumption rather than Taven’s lines early undermining and big angle and the powers that be at ROH either 1) didn’t notice or 2) didn’t bother telling him to do it over again.


ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Foundation (Rhett Titus & Tracy Williams)(c) vs. OGK (Matt Taven & Michael Bennett)- 5.5/10
Rhett now has some ridiculous bloody skull mask that has no significance or relationship to his character that I can identify. Even more shocking and a bad idea was that graphic telling me that the tag champs are a mere 3-0 as a team. It’s okay to omit details. Just tell me that they’re “undefeated as a tag team.”
This match really didn’t work for me. I thought Taven’s selling was far too inconsistent, and the mirror-image offense stuff was too cute by far. It felt choreographed and unnatural.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Taven and Bennett mope. Taven says “I don’t understand who would do this to us.” Really? You can’t think of anyone, Matt? Maybe the group you are feuding with whose lackeys attacked and tried to abduct your tag team partner just last week?
Vincent then took over the CaryTron to do Matt Taven’s catchphrase, so the mystery was answered in the most obvious way possible. That’s not always a bad thing, but it’s not good when the babyfaces don’t have an inkling that the answer was the most obvious one.


This was a mixed bag show from ROH. Basically, the first half was good and the second half was bad.