ROH All-Star Extravaganza VII
ROH All-Star Extravaganza VII (9/18/2015)- San Antonio, TX
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Truth Martini) vs. Bobby Fish- 7/10
A great story with Fish working over Lethal’s knee, and beautiful execution on the finish.
IF SILAS WINS, HE GETS THE BOYS, IF CASTLE WINS, SILAS BECOMES ONE OF THE BOYS: Silas Young vs. Dalton Castle (w/the boys)- 6.25/10
WHO WILL BE THE BRISCOES OPPONENTS?- First Adam Page and BJ Whitmer came out, but they were clearly injured, so they went to join Kelly and Corino on commentary. Then the Romantic Touch came out and the Briscoes tossed him out of the ring. Then the All-Night Express came out from the back, and I mean both Rhett and Kenny, meaning that (at least in kayfabe), Rhett Titus never was the Romantic Touch. Huh. Anyway, we’ve got…
THE BRISCOES vs. THE ALL-NIGHT EXPRESS- 6.25/10
On his way to the ring, Rhett Titus kicked the Romantic Touch in the head. I’ll bet that was pretty cathartic.
The match was shorter than I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised that they made the right decision for the finish. After the match, Page snuck into the ring and kicked Jay Briscoe in the nuts, but Mark, Rhett, and Kenny all chased him off.
Whitmer was critical of Kenny King for leaving ROH and now trying to come back. It’s nice to see that some of the concepts the Decade was originally founded on are still running strong.
NO DISQUALIFICATION MATCH: Moose (w/Stokely Hathaway) vs. Cedric Alexander (w/Veda Scott)- 7/10
Great showing from Moose. Cedric was his usual great self. Good weapons match.
MATCH #3 IN THEIR BEST OF FIVE SERIES: Matt Sydal vs. ACH- 6.75/10
They did a good job telling the story of learning from each other (especially ACH learning from Sydal), both within this match and within the context of the series as a whole.
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Addiction(c) vs. The Young Bucks vs. The Kingdom (w/Maria Kanellis)- 7.75/10
Lots of action, as you would expect. More interestingly, though, was the spot where someone came out in a KRD mask, but then superkicked Kaz and gave Daniels a Cradle Shock. The plot thickens.
#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: AJ Styles vs. Adam Cole vs. Michael Elgin vs. Roderick Strong- 7.5/10
I was a little disappointed in this, considering all of the talent involved. They told the standard multi-man story of no one being able to get a pin (or really even get any sustained offense) because someone else would always show up to cut you off.
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Truth Martini) vs. Kyle O’Reilly- 7/10
There was a lot of great action here, but the finish was just overbooked to death. It turns out that the whole Adam Cole babyface turn was just a ruse to screw with Kyle, because who needs an interesting storyline when we could just keep sh*t the same as it has been for the past eighteen months?
WHY? If they didn’t like Kyle, wouldn’t it have been easier to just attack him as a unit of three a bunch of times over the course of the summer?
A good show from ROH, but when you are only doing four PPVs and year and are priding yourself on excellent in-ring action, a good show is not good enough. Once again it feel like they tried to cram too much stuff onto the PPV. To be fair, there wasn’t much to cut aside from the ACH vs. Sydal match, and that would mean not having ACH wrestle on PPV in his home state. Maybe they could have somehow found a way to squeeze the Briscoes into the tag title match and saved the ANX for the next night’s tapings (or the next iPPV if you want to ensure that spoilers won’t get out). No matter whether it was avoidable or not, though, it really felt like most of the matches didn’t get enough time (and looking back, the only match that got over 14:30 was ACH vs. Sydal). When you consider the high caliber of shows ROH has been putting on this year, this show was disappointing from an in-ring perspective (it almost certainly ranks in the bottom five so far), and the Kingdom reuniting was a huge creative disappointment as well. I really hope Final Battle delivers.
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Truth Martini) vs. Bobby Fish- 7/10
A great story with Fish working over Lethal’s knee, and beautiful execution on the finish.
IF SILAS WINS, HE GETS THE BOYS, IF CASTLE WINS, SILAS BECOMES ONE OF THE BOYS: Silas Young vs. Dalton Castle (w/the boys)- 6.25/10
WHO WILL BE THE BRISCOES OPPONENTS?- First Adam Page and BJ Whitmer came out, but they were clearly injured, so they went to join Kelly and Corino on commentary. Then the Romantic Touch came out and the Briscoes tossed him out of the ring. Then the All-Night Express came out from the back, and I mean both Rhett and Kenny, meaning that (at least in kayfabe), Rhett Titus never was the Romantic Touch. Huh. Anyway, we’ve got…
THE BRISCOES vs. THE ALL-NIGHT EXPRESS- 6.25/10
On his way to the ring, Rhett Titus kicked the Romantic Touch in the head. I’ll bet that was pretty cathartic.
The match was shorter than I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised that they made the right decision for the finish. After the match, Page snuck into the ring and kicked Jay Briscoe in the nuts, but Mark, Rhett, and Kenny all chased him off.
Whitmer was critical of Kenny King for leaving ROH and now trying to come back. It’s nice to see that some of the concepts the Decade was originally founded on are still running strong.
NO DISQUALIFICATION MATCH: Moose (w/Stokely Hathaway) vs. Cedric Alexander (w/Veda Scott)- 7/10
Great showing from Moose. Cedric was his usual great self. Good weapons match.
MATCH #3 IN THEIR BEST OF FIVE SERIES: Matt Sydal vs. ACH- 6.75/10
They did a good job telling the story of learning from each other (especially ACH learning from Sydal), both within this match and within the context of the series as a whole.
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Addiction(c) vs. The Young Bucks vs. The Kingdom (w/Maria Kanellis)- 7.75/10
Lots of action, as you would expect. More interestingly, though, was the spot where someone came out in a KRD mask, but then superkicked Kaz and gave Daniels a Cradle Shock. The plot thickens.
#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: AJ Styles vs. Adam Cole vs. Michael Elgin vs. Roderick Strong- 7.5/10
I was a little disappointed in this, considering all of the talent involved. They told the standard multi-man story of no one being able to get a pin (or really even get any sustained offense) because someone else would always show up to cut you off.
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Truth Martini) vs. Kyle O’Reilly- 7/10
There was a lot of great action here, but the finish was just overbooked to death. It turns out that the whole Adam Cole babyface turn was just a ruse to screw with Kyle, because who needs an interesting storyline when we could just keep sh*t the same as it has been for the past eighteen months?
WHY? If they didn’t like Kyle, wouldn’t it have been easier to just attack him as a unit of three a bunch of times over the course of the summer?
A good show from ROH, but when you are only doing four PPVs and year and are priding yourself on excellent in-ring action, a good show is not good enough. Once again it feel like they tried to cram too much stuff onto the PPV. To be fair, there wasn’t much to cut aside from the ACH vs. Sydal match, and that would mean not having ACH wrestle on PPV in his home state. Maybe they could have somehow found a way to squeeze the Briscoes into the tag title match and saved the ANX for the next night’s tapings (or the next iPPV if you want to ensure that spoilers won’t get out). No matter whether it was avoidable or not, though, it really felt like most of the matches didn’t get enough time (and looking back, the only match that got over 14:30 was ACH vs. Sydal). When you consider the high caliber of shows ROH has been putting on this year, this show was disappointing from an in-ring perspective (it almost certainly ranks in the bottom five so far), and the Kingdom reuniting was a huge creative disappointment as well. I really hope Final Battle delivers.