BRM Reviews the 2/27/2016 ROH

[Big Red Machine]

SILAS YOUNG & THE BEER CITY BRUISER vs. THE BOYS (w/Dalton Castle)- DUD!
The match started with the Boys coming out onto the stage like usual, but instead, Dalton Castle came out through the crowd and attacked the heels from behind like a coward. This is not how a babyface should act. This resulted in Dalton getting ejected from ringside, which was good, but it would have been better to just have him charge down the ramp like a babyface instead of acting like a heel, and having the Boys act like heels by knowingly aiding in his scheme.
Then Silas Young cut a promo offering to put his career on the line on this match because he’s so confident.
Then they had a match that went WAY too long. This match should have been the Boys getting squashed. Maybe you can give them one roll-up when Silas gets cocky, but then they should have gotten their asses kicked even more after that. THE BOYS do not need to be made to look good in their loss. We all know Silas isn’t losing, and the Boys getting destroyed would force Dalton to go into their upcoming Fight Without Honor on his own and looking for revenge. In the ring, this might have been fine, but purely from a booking POV, this was such a failure that I couldn’t enjoy it. There is absolutely no f*cking reason that SILAS YOUNG & BEER CITY BRUISER vs. THE BOYS ON A ONE-HOUR TV SHOW should ever get more time than RODERICK STRONG VS. TOMOHIRO ISHII VS. BOBBY FISH FOR THE TV TITLE ON A THREE-HOUR PPV! FIRE DELIRIOUS!
And oh look here’s Dalton Castle out here again to brawl with the heels. At least he got his ass kicked this time so there can be a tiny bit of actual heat.

TOP PROSPECT TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL MATCH: Action Ortiz vs. Brian Fury- 2.5/10
On commentary, Kevin Kelly randomly tells us that Brian Fury is Hanson’s best friend. I absolutely HATE it when the commentators throw out random bits of insider info that have no relevance whatsoever. I don’t want Hanson to have a “best friend.” He’s supposed to be a big, intense monster Viking babyface. If he has any friends, his tag team partner should be the ONLY one. But no. Kevin Kelly has to say things that completely go against the image War Machine has set up just so he can put over this schmoe who has been in the business since 1999 without ever doing anything because he and Hanson are buddies.
I get what they are trying to do with Fury in this tournament, but the way this match was put together made him look like crap. Ortiz, on the other hand, moves quite impressively for his size.

KEVIN KELLY INTERVIEWS BRIAN FURY- fine.

TOP PROSPECT TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL MATCH: Lio Rush vs. Punisher Martinez- 6.5/10
Geez. Martinez makes Lio look like he’s about thirteen years old. Anyway…
THIS F*CKING MATCH RIGHT HERE! GO WATCH IT NOW!
The first few minutes of this match consisted of Rush giving it his everything and Martinez just shrugging off his offense and grabbing Rush for a move, but Rush would ALWAYS struggle out of it and go for some more offense that Martinez would shrug off… but you KNEW at some point, something would have to give: either Rush wouldn’t be able to escape or his offense would start affecting Martinez.
They built it up to the point where when he finally did hit that big move you KNEW that was it for Rush… but then Rush kicked out and it was just SOOOO GREAT! I saw more in-ring personality in this match from both guys than I have seen from Will Ferrara, Beer City Bruiser, J. Diesel, Donovan Dijak, and Dalton Castle in their entire ROH careers combined. I want to see both of these guys get pushed in ROH this year!

KEVIN KELLY INTERVIEWS THE WINNER- the winner cut a great promo!

ADAM COLE vs. MATT SYDAL- 7.25/10
This match went just over ten minutes. It should have gotten twice as much time.

An infuriating opening match, but the rest of this show was pretty good.