BRM Reviews the 12/9/2015 ROH

[Big Red Machine]

Nigel McGuinness and Kevin Kelly are on commentary.

reDRagon vs. BEER CITY BRUISER & SILAS YOUNG (w/the Boys)- 6.5/10
Good opener. The Boys seems to be solidly in Silas’ camp now, as they interfered on his behalf, but one of them also cost Silas a win by distracting the referee at the wrong time. If I had to nitpick (and I guess I do), I would point out that it would have made a lot more sense for Bobby Fish to pick up the pin here instead of Kyle O’Reilly because Fish is getting a TV Title shot at Final Battle. And speaking of that TV Title shot, they didn’t mention it here at all, and yet they did announce the upcoming (and barely even built up) Silas Young vs. Dalton Castle match at Final Battle (which, due to the lack of build, feel like by far the least important match those two have had so far).

POST-MATCH STUFF- We got a shoving match between Cole and O’Reilly, but Nigel got between them before it could escalate.
Silas ordered the Boys to attack the referee and they did.
The DALTON CASTLE showed up. The still-groggy Beer City Bruiser tried to attack Castle, but Dalton put him down with a good shot to the head with a microphone. Castle said that the Boys should come back to him, but after thinking about it, the Boys decided to stay with Silas. That was kind of surprising.

CHRIS SABIN PROMO- he is upset because someone (the guy running around in the KRD mask who attacked Kaz and Daniels at All-Star Extravaganza VII) has “decided to steal our gimmick.” That line made me laugh. He demands that this person come out and so he does… and then he takes off his mask and OHHHHH SH*T IT’S ALEX SHELLEY! They have a stare down and Sabin leaves.

ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Roderick Strong(c) vs. Samson Walker- 5.75/10
Yes. For some reason SAMSON WALKER is getting a TV Title shot. Anyone want to know how many main show victories Mr. Walker has in his ROH career? TWO. Just two. His most recent one was back in early June when he won a three-way to earn a TV Title shot later in the night (which he lost). Before that point, his last victory in ROH was at Rise and Prove in FEBRUARY 2012! WHY THE F*CK IS THIS MAN GETTING A TITLE SHOT?! Why did this have to be a TV Title defense? Would it have been that hard to make it non-title, Lizard Man? Really?
Bobby Fish is on commentary now, and for some reason they now about his upcoming TV Title shot at Final Battle. He was a huge ass the whole time, including taking Roddy’s title belt and wearing it, just to annoy Roddy.

INSIDE ROH SEGMENT- good plug for the SOTF VODs… or at least it would have been if they had ever mentioned that you could buy the VODs from the ROH website.

YOUNG BUCKS vs. THE BRISCOES- 7/10
These guys did a fantastic job for a match that only went nine minutes. ANX was on commentary. Okay, really it was just Kenny King. Rhett wasn’t even a headset, and got to say very little.
After the match, we got a brawl between all three teams, which was started by ANX. This was done to set up a three-way #1 contendership match on PPV because Delirious is a lazy booker (and this was made even more ridiculous by the commentary, which focused purely on an issue between the Buck and ANX stemming from Survival of the Fittest 2015: Night 2, do it really feels like Final Battle should have ANX vs. the Young Bucks in a regular tag match with the Briscoes off doing something else). This was also infuriating because Mark Briscoe participated in this brawl, despite having taken both the Indy-Taker and More Bang For Your Buck in the last three minutes.

A decent show from ROH, but there was a lot of disappointing booking on full display here.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Kevin Kelly- “certainly the Briscoes have been part of the tag team mix since day one.”
Unless, of course, you know your ROH history that is. Those of us who know our history know that it took the Briscoes over a year to team up… and, in fact, they feuded first.

[Big Red Machine]

ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Roderick Strong(c) vs. Samson Walker- 5.75/10
Yes. For some reason SAMSON WALKER is getting a TV Title shot. Anyone want to know how many main show victories Mr. Walker has in his ROH career? TWO. Just two. His most recent one was back in early June when he won a three-way to earn a TV Title shot later in the night (which he lost). Before that point, his last victory in ROH was at Rise and Prove in FEBRUARY 2012! WHY THE F*CK IS THIS MAN GETTING A TITLE SHOT?! Why did this have to be a TV Title defense? Would it have been that hard to make it non-title, Lizard Man? Really?

So according to what I've been able to glean from the commentary for Road to Final Battle, this "Roddy vs. The World" thing that the announcers keep talking about means that Roddy is sending out open contracts for TV Title matches, so it makes sense that Walker would want one. Of course, this doesn't absolve ROH of any blame in this mishap. It just shifts the blame away from the booker and onto the announcers for never once explaining this or even mentioning an open contract or anything.