BRM Reviews the 10/28/2015 ROH

[Big Red Machine]

Nigel is doing color commentary instead of Corino because Steve is in trouble for punching BJ Whitmer last week.

MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway) vs. DONOVAN DIJAK (w/Truth Martini)- 5/10
In setting this match up on commentary, Kevin Kelly made sure to describe Moose as a “credible threat” to Jay Lethal’s ROH World Title, including bringing up the events of Reloaded Tour: Chicago. Between those and the most recent set of spoilers, well… I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Moose received his first shot at the ROH World Title sometime in early 2016 (the Jan. 23 show in Duluth, GA seems like a logical place for this to happen).
WHAT THE HELL?! I want to see a hoss fight and these big f*ckers keep doing jumps and flips!
They had a fun match, although the finish looked a bit week.

DALTON CASTLE vs. CEDRIC ALEXANDER (w/Veda Scott)- 4.5/10
The idea here was that Castle was more aggressive than normal and didn’t do any of his usual schtik, which was a plus.

VEDA SCOTT PROMO- she declares ROH to be an unsafe working environment (Cedric claims to have suffered an injury in the No DQs match on the PPV and has his legs taped up, and Veda claims to have suffered “emotional distress” during the match, so she and Cedric and going to sue ROH. Because those segments with Jim Cornette, Kevin Steen, and the evil lawyers worked out so well.

TRUTH MARTINI, JAY LETHAL, & RODERICK STRONG SEGMENT-
Lethal and Truth comes out and Truth tries to cut a promo, but Roddy immediately interrupts him. Roddy makes some ridiculous claims, including that “if it wasn’t for Truth Martini, Jay Lethal wouldn’t even be in Ring of Honor.”
Lethal righly points out that he has beaten Roddy and thus Roddy should go to the back of the line and shouldn’t get a world title shot. Nigel gets into the ring and agrees with this statement… but then names Roddy #1 contender to the TV Title simply because there currently isn’t a #1 contender for that title and because the fans want to see it. That’s pretty f*cking stupid. Roddy hasn’t done sh*t to earn this. AS NIGEL JUST ADMITTED, Roddy lost to Jay Lethal for the world title and hasn’t done anything to earn another title shot… so why is he just being given a shot at Lethal’s other title?
This whole San Antonio weekend is quickly becoming exhibit A in the case for replacing Delirious as booker as quickly as possible.

MICHAEL ELGIN, BOBBY FISH, & KYLE O’REILLY vs. THE KINGDOM (w/Maria Kanellis)- 7.75/10
The match was GREAT, but I really didn’t like the Kingdom losing here. It’s their first match back as a team, and Bennett and Taven’s first match as tag champs. Bennett shouldn’t have been pinned.
Cole the babyfaces out with one of the tag belts after the match. Kyle cut a fiery babyface promos demanding a match with Cole, so Nigel added Kyle to next week’s main event, which will now be…
ADAM COLE VS. KYLE O’REILLY VS. AJ STYLES!

Destination America, douchebags that they are, just HAD to stick their own graphic OVER one of ROH’s graphics instead of just waiting two minutes until ROH’s graphic was gone before putting their graphic up.

This was a very good show from ROH. It established direction or a new status quo for some undercard guys and gave us a great main event that also set up what looks to be an amazing main event for next week.
Unfortunately, it also had that segment setting up Roddy getting the TV Title shot for no reason. During the main event, Nigel said he was “really mad” about what Cole did during the main event of the PPV. He also said that “when this company was founded it was about clear winners and losers, and that’s not what we got.”
If that’s the case, then why didn’t Nigel come out here and announce that Kyle would be getting a rematch? Or why isn’t Bobby Fish the #1 contender to the TV Title? Lethal cheated to beat him. Watanabe, too, for that matter. The problem with the overuse of cheating finishes in Delirious’ booking (especially where titles have been concerned) is that you can’t claim to be the real pro wrestling/clean finishes/honorable stuff company and not follow up on these things… and that is only made worse when you have a babyface authority figure enforcing things selectively, which is exactly what Nigel is doing here. Hell... why is there no discussion of doing a rematch in the "Battle for the Boys?" Silas cheated to win that match, too. The action in ROH this year has been top-notch, but the booking-especially over the last few months, has been quite disappointing.