BRM Reviews the 11/18/2015 ROH (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

VIGNETTE OF SILAS TRYING TO TEACH THE BOYS TO DO THINGS- not anywhere near as funny as I had hoped it would be. Also, I couldn’t help but notice that Silas does not have a rear license plate on his car, which is illegal.

WAR MACHINE vs. SILAS YOUNG & THE BEER CITY BRUISER (w/the Boys)- 4.75/10
Raymond Rowe tried to use the Superman Punch. It looked terrible. The match wasn’t so good for the time it got. The interesting bit is that the Boys interfered on Silas’ behalf completely of their own volition.

Nigel and Kevin off-handedly mention to us that War Machine are getting the ROH World Tag Team Title shot at Final Battle. No build, no story, not even a flimsily justified #1 contendership match. Just a random announcement that War Machine, who just defeated the most undercard team in the division, and are coming off of a TV taping and a PPV where they… weren’t there because they were in Pro Wrestling NOAH where they… lost to K.E.S. But apparently they’re getting a tag team title shot.
This sucks SOOOO much. Don’t get me wrong: I love War Machine. They are half of the reason that I am actually watching the NOAH show where they got their tag title shot (the other half is Suzuki vs. Sugiura)… but THEY HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING AT ALL TO EARN THIS TITLE SHOT.
The title match at Final Battle should be The Kingdom vs. ANX. ANX is returning to the promotion as the former champions who were never defeated for the titles. They debut as a big surprise on PPV, defeating their former biggest rivals and the absolute benchmark for any tag team in ROH, the Briscoes. What’s even the point of bringing them back if you aren’t going to build them up for a tag title shot (since then, they have lost to the Kingdom via cheating, and gotten jobbed out cleanly to the Briscoes.
I can’t call Delirious the “worst booker of the year” because the everything up until All-Star Extravaganza VII was very good (with one or two small exceptions), but everything since Adam Cole turned heel in that main event has been SOOO bad, and there has been so much squandered since the Road to Best in the World Tour (coincidentally, the same time when most house shows stopped mattering) that no matter how poorly WWE has failed, no matter how convoluted CHIKARA has become this year, no matter how bland TNA has felt or how stale New Japan has become, there is no doubt in my mind that Delirious is far and away the most frustrating booker this year.

NIGEL & CORINO SEGMENT- awesome and heartbreaking.
They build up for Whitmer vs. Corino. Nigel says he will reinstate Corino as a wrestler and book a Fight Without Honor for Final Battle and Corino talks about how great that would be… but he can’t do it because he needs major surgery on his neck. He thanked a lot of people including Cary, Sinclair Broadcasting, Adam Pearce, and “Hunter Johnston.” Also, Colt Cabana got mentioned. Gabe Sapolsky was notably left off the list. He did conclude his promo with the words “My name is Steve Corino, and I will always be an evil man,” which suggests that he does believe that he will return at some point, and when he does, he will be as violent as ever.

MICHAEL ELGIN SQUASHES A REALLY FAT, REALLY WHITE VERSION OF SAMOA JOE- he beats him with one lariat.

MICHAEL ELGIN PROMO- decent. He’s coming after the world title.

There was a commercial bumper featuring reDRagon which was utterly terrible.

ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Kingdom(c) (w/Maria Kanellis) vs. The Addiction (w/Chris Sabin)- 6/10
It started off eh until the comedy spot. I was okay with the comedy spot because this is heel vs. heel, it wasn’t farcical comedy, and was completely organic to the match in-character for both wrestlers. Said spot resulted in Sabin and Maria getting sent to the back, after which the match really picked up… until the stupid, over-booked finish. The stuff with Maria was bad because it made The Kingdom look like babyfaces. The stuff with the KRD imposter(?)/red mask guy was bad because it’s just dumb.
Oh. And then War Machine came out on the ramp to stare down the Kingdom because that is what is going to pass for building up this title match.

A pretty bad show from ROH. Probably the worst in at least the last eighteen months.

[Bulletclubfan2014]

Nigel and Kevin off-handedly mention to us that War Machine are getting the ROH World Tag Team Title shot at Final Battle. No build, no story, not even a flimsily justified #1 contendership match. Just a random announcement that War Machine, who just defeated the most undercard team in the division, and are coming off of a TV taping and a PPV where they… weren’t there because they were in Pro Wrestling NOAH where they… lost to K.E.S. But apparently they’re getting a tag team title shot.
This sucks SOOOO much. Don’t get me wrong: I love War Machine. They are half of the reason that I am actually watching the NOAH show where they got their tag title shot (the other half is Suzuki vs. Sugiura)… but THEY HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING AT ALL TO EARN THIS TITLE SHOT.

Actually War Machine beat Taven and Bennett on ROH TV that aired a couple days before All Star Extravaganza which is a classic booking trick you have a team beat the champs shortly before they become the champs and boom instant number 1 contenders

[Big Red Machine]

Nigel and Kevin off-handedly mention to us that War Machine are getting the ROH World Tag Team Title shot at Final Battle. No build, no story, not even a flimsily justified #1 contendership match. Just a random announcement that War Machine, who just defeated the most undercard team in the division, and are coming off of a TV taping and a PPV where they… weren’t there because they were in Pro Wrestling NOAH where they… lost to K.E.S. But apparently they’re getting a tag team title shot.
This sucks SOOOO much. Don’t get me wrong: I love War Machine. They are half of the reason that I am actually watching the NOAH show where they got their tag title shot (the other half is Suzuki vs. Sugiura)… but THEY HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING AT ALL TO EARN THIS TITLE SHOT.

Actually War Machine beat Taven and Bennett on ROH TV that aired a couple days before All Star Extravaganza which is a classic booking trick you have a team beat the champs shortly before they become the champs and boom instant number 1 contenders

I disagree that that makes you #1 contenders. It's good for creating the idea that these guys could beat the champs if they earn a title shot, but beating someone who wasn't the champs at the time is not enough to earn you a title shot. That particular finish was also not a clean one as Bennett was distracted by the Bucks attempting to remove Maria from ringside after she had cheated.
That's also really not the right way to build a team like War Machine up for a tag title shot. They should be beating everyone for months and months while the announcers keep taking about how unstoppable they are. That hasn't come close to happening.
And also, if Delirious is having the Kingdom lose right before their title shot, that's bad booking, too.

[Bulletclubfan2014]

Nigel and Kevin off-handedly mention to us that War Machine are getting the ROH World Tag Team Title shot at Final Battle. No build, no story, not even a flimsily justified #1 contendership match. Just a random announcement that War Machine, who just defeated the most undercard team in the division, and are coming off of a TV taping and a PPV where they… weren’t there because they were in Pro Wrestling NOAH where they… lost to K.E.S. But apparently they’re getting a tag team title shot.
This sucks SOOOO much. Don’t get me wrong: I love War Machine. They are half of the reason that I am actually watching the NOAH show where they got their tag title shot (the other half is Suzuki vs. Sugiura)… but THEY HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING AT ALL TO EARN THIS TITLE SHOT.

Actually War Machine beat Taven and Bennett on ROH TV that aired a couple days before All Star Extravaganza which is a classic booking trick you have a team beat the champs shortly before they become the champs and boom instant number 1 contenders

I disagree that that makes you #1 contenders. It's good for creating the idea that these guys could beat the champs if they earn a title shot, but beating someone who wasn't the champs at the time is not enough to earn you a title shot. That particular finish was also not a clean one as Bennett was distracted by the Bucks attempting to remove Maria from ringside after she had cheated.
That's also really not the right way to build a team like War Machine up for a tag title shot. They should be beating everyone for months and months while the announcers keep taking about how unstoppable they are. That hasn't come close to happening.
And also, if Delirious is having the Kingdom lose right before their title shot, that's bad booking, too.

Not that bad booking they did it with Austin right before he won at WrestleMania X7, Cena before he won at Bragging Rights 2009 and ROH has done it for years even before Delirious took over you beat a champ before he becomes champ the guy who beat him becomes no. 1 contender

[Big Red Machine]

Actually War Machine beat Taven and Bennett on ROH TV that aired a couple days before All Star Extravaganza which is a classic booking trick you have a team beat the champs shortly before they become the champs and boom instant number 1 contenders

I disagree that that makes you #1 contenders. It's good for creating the idea that these guys could beat the champs if they earn a title shot, but beating someone who wasn't the champs at the time is not enough to earn you a title shot. That particular finish was also not a clean one as Bennett was distracted by the Bucks attempting to remove Maria from ringside after she had cheated.
That's also really not the right way to build a team like War Machine up for a tag title shot. They should be beating everyone for months and months while the announcers keep taking about how unstoppable they are. That hasn't come close to happening.
And also, if Delirious is having the Kingdom lose right before their title shot, that's bad booking, too.

Not that bad booking they did it with Austin right before he won at WrestleMania X7, Cena before he won at Bragging Rights 2009 and ROH has done it for years even before Delirious took over you beat a champ before he becomes champ the guy who beat him becomes no. 1 contender

I'm not saying the concept is bad. I'm saying it doesn't work as well for what is supposed to be a big title match. Austin-Rock at X-7 had A LOT more going into it than just that, and ROH has never used JUST that as justification for a major title defense... and even when they have done it for non-major title defenses, it has usually been coupled with some sort of story (for example, Aries' getting the first shot at Dragon wasn't just because he was the last man to defeat Dragon before Dragon won the belt, but it was because Aries had never gotten his return match, against either Punk or Gibson). The issue here is that War Machine have not been portrayed like or positioned as top contenders at all, and the fact that they are getting the tag title shot here while ANX were brought in specifically because they seemed like perfect top contenders and were kind of positioned as such (along with The Addiction) on TV, only to then be jobbed out a bunch of times afterwards (same with the Addiction) is utterly baffling.