BRM Reviews the 1/26/2013 ROH

[Big Red Machine]

SEGMENT WITH SCUM, LETHAL, & NIGEL- awesome segment.
Lethal's explanation of Steen's motivation here (to beat all of the honorable wrestlers to stick it to ROH as revenge for the wrongs he feels were done to him) is something that we should have gotten in the first half of 2012! instead we got a feud between Steen and Cornette which made Steen look like a babyface! Cornette booking... GRRRR!
Anyway, we got a great promo from Lethal and some great acting from Steen that makes this babyface-ish-ness not seem totally out of nowhere while drawing a nice contrast between Steen & Corino.

Congrats to Steve Corino for being the first one to hit upon this important point/pet peeve of mine. The guilty party in the whole Lethal Family/Steen mess from Killer Instinct is Lethal's father. He crossed the line when he threw his drink on Steen. The heels provoke every other fan in every other building, too, but those fans know that they are not allowed to jump the guardrail (well, most of them, anyway- the other one who doesn't understand this seems to be Papa Briscoe). Why is everyone acting like Steen did something wrong?

This segment also marks a first, as Caleb Seltzer finally says something enjoyable:
"Nigel has security. SCUM has Rhino.

MICHAEL ELGIN PROMO/11TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW HYPE- very good

TOP PROSPECT TOURNAMENT MATCH: Silas Young vs. Adam Page- 5/10
Yeah, putting Silas Young in a "top prospect" tournament at age 32 seems kind of silly. Anyway, this was a decent match, although I really didn't think that Page took enough damage to his neck to tap to a neck submission.

CHARLIE HAAS PROMO- AWESOME heel stuff from Haas, ending with him tormenting a student from the ROH Wrestling Academy. Haas' jerkish-ness got the crowd behind the kid and even managed to get himself the Jimmy Rave toilet-paper treatment from the crowd!

MATT HARDY vs. RHETT TITUS- 5.5/10
Great for a match that only went about seven minutes, and coming in with rib injury combined with Matt working his ribs over all match didn't make Rhett look weak for losing in such a short time. They actually had me on one or two nearfalls.
Rhett now has a full beard & mustache, which makes him look like a ridiculous cross between himself and Chris Hero.

GRR... I hate it when they run the same hype commercial/interview twice on the same show. It just feels very bush-league and very taped.

ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Adam Cole(c) vs. BJ Whitmer- 6.25/10
Not good enough for a main event. Matt Hardy was very good on commentary.

Overall, a very enjoyable show from ROH