ROH Global Wars 2015: Night 1
ROH Global Wars 2015: Night 1 (5/15/2015)- Toronto, ON
TAKAAKI WATANABE & SILAS YOUNG vs. GEDO & MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway & Veda Scott)- 5/10
A good example of four completely random guys getting together and having a perfectly fine tag match. The finish did a good job of setting up the post-match segment, which could lead to a fun little undercard feud between Silas and Watanabe. Speaking of Watanabe, he has colorful tights now, I guess he has officially graduated from being a young boy. Good for him. He certainly seems to have more personality in the ring now than he did last year. Hopefully Silas will be able to bring even more of it out.
That being said, I was quite surprised that Moose wrestled here without complaint seeing as how the last show had him come out and refuse to wrestle until he was given an ROH World Title match.
CHRIS SABIN vs. KYLE O’REILLY vs. KUSHIDA- 7.5/10
A great match that made great use of the three-way stipulation. Both babyfaces worked over Sabin’s arm all match, which led to a great finish. They did a lot of great stuff but also kept the pace very slow, which actually makes me very interested to hear Jim Ross’ thoughts on this match, because if he thinks this match needed to be slowed down, then I think it’s fair to just write off that particular criticism of his to him being a dinosaur.
MATT SYDAL & JUSHIN â€"THUNDER†LIGER vs. THE KINGDOM (Matt Taven & Michael Bennett) (w/Maria Kanellis)- 6.25/10
I didn’t like the â€"motorboat†spot with Maria and Liger. You’d think Liger had never seen a woman before with the way he reacted. The good news is that they completely made up for it with the next spot with Sydal, which was utterly AMAZING!
CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA (w/Gedo)- 7.75/10
You know how ROH has this unfortunate (but earned) reputation of having trouble with their iPPVs? Well… during this one, a new problem arose: the house lights went off. Twice. They got them working both times, though, and it didn’t interfere with the match at all.
The match was quite great, and they actually had me biting on one of Cedric’s nearfalls. Okada won in the end, but offered Cedric a handshake after the match, but Cedric snubbed him. I’m very interested to see where this Cedric Alexander losing streak/not shaking hands after his losses story is going.
ROPPONGI VICE vs. THE ADDICTION vs. THE DECADE (w/Colby Corino)- 7.5/10
Standard tag team stuff with both sets of heels getting heat on Roppongi Vice, but towards the end we also got a FANTASTIC confrontation between Christopher Daniels and Adam Page that could lead somewhere very interesting for Page. The action was great and they had a nice little angle with Kyle O’Reilly and the Addiction after the match.
SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. ACH- 7.5/10
Fun with mannerisms! Also fun because of great wrestling!
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Donovan Dijak) vs. Tetsuya Naito- 7.25/10
A little bit disappointing, considering the talent involved, but that can be chalked up to the short match-time (under thirteen minutes for a big title match).
HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. MICHAEL ELGIN- 6.5/10
Very disappointing. They did some good stuff, don’t get me wrong (especially the finishing sequence), but there was also quite a few things here that didn’t look very good at all. I was expecting a hell of a lot more.
THE BULLET CLUB (AJ Styles, Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson, & The Young Bucks vs. ROH ALL-STARS (Roderick Strong, The Briscoes, & War Machine)- 8.5/10
Exactly the sort of crazy, fast-paced action you’d expect. Actually, some of this stuff was much crazier than you’d expect. It did feel a bit over-choreographed at times, but that’s only a bad thing if you do it too often. This is one of those matches that you only want to have once or twice a year, and ROH really hasn’t had anything quite this crazy this year, so I enjoyed it. Awesome match.
SHOW-CLOSING ANGLE- awesome
We get the big stare-down between ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe and IWGP Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles, and they eventually shake hands. Then Jay Lethal comes out and lays both guys out with his ROH TV Title belt (taking AJ out might have been an accident as it looked like he swung at Jay and Jay ducked, but it’s possible he was aiming for AJ), and stands tall to close the show.
A GREAT show from ROH (and New Japan), despite one or two matches coming up rather short of expectations. The crowd was hot for almost everything, and pretty much everyone from New Japan (as well as most of the top ROH guys) got huge reactions.
TAKAAKI WATANABE & SILAS YOUNG vs. GEDO & MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway & Veda Scott)- 5/10
A good example of four completely random guys getting together and having a perfectly fine tag match. The finish did a good job of setting up the post-match segment, which could lead to a fun little undercard feud between Silas and Watanabe. Speaking of Watanabe, he has colorful tights now, I guess he has officially graduated from being a young boy. Good for him. He certainly seems to have more personality in the ring now than he did last year. Hopefully Silas will be able to bring even more of it out.
That being said, I was quite surprised that Moose wrestled here without complaint seeing as how the last show had him come out and refuse to wrestle until he was given an ROH World Title match.
CHRIS SABIN vs. KYLE O’REILLY vs. KUSHIDA- 7.5/10
A great match that made great use of the three-way stipulation. Both babyfaces worked over Sabin’s arm all match, which led to a great finish. They did a lot of great stuff but also kept the pace very slow, which actually makes me very interested to hear Jim Ross’ thoughts on this match, because if he thinks this match needed to be slowed down, then I think it’s fair to just write off that particular criticism of his to him being a dinosaur.
MATT SYDAL & JUSHIN â€"THUNDER†LIGER vs. THE KINGDOM (Matt Taven & Michael Bennett) (w/Maria Kanellis)- 6.25/10
I didn’t like the â€"motorboat†spot with Maria and Liger. You’d think Liger had never seen a woman before with the way he reacted. The good news is that they completely made up for it with the next spot with Sydal, which was utterly AMAZING!
CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA (w/Gedo)- 7.75/10
You know how ROH has this unfortunate (but earned) reputation of having trouble with their iPPVs? Well… during this one, a new problem arose: the house lights went off. Twice. They got them working both times, though, and it didn’t interfere with the match at all.
The match was quite great, and they actually had me biting on one of Cedric’s nearfalls. Okada won in the end, but offered Cedric a handshake after the match, but Cedric snubbed him. I’m very interested to see where this Cedric Alexander losing streak/not shaking hands after his losses story is going.
ROPPONGI VICE vs. THE ADDICTION vs. THE DECADE (w/Colby Corino)- 7.5/10
Standard tag team stuff with both sets of heels getting heat on Roppongi Vice, but towards the end we also got a FANTASTIC confrontation between Christopher Daniels and Adam Page that could lead somewhere very interesting for Page. The action was great and they had a nice little angle with Kyle O’Reilly and the Addiction after the match.
SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. ACH- 7.5/10
Fun with mannerisms! Also fun because of great wrestling!
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Donovan Dijak) vs. Tetsuya Naito- 7.25/10
A little bit disappointing, considering the talent involved, but that can be chalked up to the short match-time (under thirteen minutes for a big title match).
HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. MICHAEL ELGIN- 6.5/10
Very disappointing. They did some good stuff, don’t get me wrong (especially the finishing sequence), but there was also quite a few things here that didn’t look very good at all. I was expecting a hell of a lot more.
THE BULLET CLUB (AJ Styles, Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson, & The Young Bucks vs. ROH ALL-STARS (Roderick Strong, The Briscoes, & War Machine)- 8.5/10
Exactly the sort of crazy, fast-paced action you’d expect. Actually, some of this stuff was much crazier than you’d expect. It did feel a bit over-choreographed at times, but that’s only a bad thing if you do it too often. This is one of those matches that you only want to have once or twice a year, and ROH really hasn’t had anything quite this crazy this year, so I enjoyed it. Awesome match.
SHOW-CLOSING ANGLE- awesome
We get the big stare-down between ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe and IWGP Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles, and they eventually shake hands. Then Jay Lethal comes out and lays both guys out with his ROH TV Title belt (taking AJ out might have been an accident as it looked like he swung at Jay and Jay ducked, but it’s possible he was aiming for AJ), and stands tall to close the show.
A GREAT show from ROH (and New Japan), despite one or two matches coming up rather short of expectations. The crowd was hot for almost everything, and pretty much everyone from New Japan (as well as most of the top ROH guys) got huge reactions.