ROH Final Battle 2015
ROH Final Battle 2015 (12/18/2015)- Philadelphia, PA
#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: The Briscoes vs. the All-Night Express vs. the Young Bucks- 6.75/10
Good, action-packed opener. ANX wins, which jut makes it even more baffling that Delirious has had them get pinned so many times since their big return three months ago with the â€"former champs who were never beaten for the belts†story.
DALTON CASTLE vs. SILAS YOUNG (w/the Boys)- 6.5/10
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- f*cking terrible.
So Silas demands that Castle admit that he (meaning Silas), is a man. Castle won’t do it, so Silas beats him up a bit. Silas then gets chairs and gives them to the Boys and tells Castle that I he doesn’t say what Silas wants, Silas will sic the Boys on him. Dalton finally gave in, saying that Silas was a real man, but then adding that he was â€"a foolish man. Because those are MY Boys.†Then the Boys attacked Silas with the chairs… despite the fact that just minutes ago, they were helping Silas in his match against Castle. Castle hit Silas with the Bangarang and let with the Boys, meaning that the net result of this feud has been absolutely nothing.
MICHAEL ELGIN vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 6.25/10
The light-up collar on Moose’s football pads was embarrassingly lame. The match was fine, but I was hoping we’d be able to see a lot more out of Moose in this big spot.
ADAM COLE vs KYLE O’REILLY- 8.25/10
Now THIS is what comes to mind when I think â€"ROH PPV!†Awesome match with both guys working over body parts, and a great finish.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- you know how Adam Cole has two arms? Well Kyle O’Reilly is trying his damnedest to take of them home with him.
KNIGHTS OF THE RISING DAWN vs. ALEX SHELLEY, MATT SYDAL, & ACH- 7.25/10
Great match, aside from one botch by ACH and Sabin. The fact that they kept Sabin and Shelley apart the whole time was pretty disappointing, though.
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Roderick Strong(c) vs. Bobby Fish- 7.25/10
A great match, but I am disappointed in both the turn (the fact that it happened- the execution was fine), and also the fact that Roderick didn’t get to close out his amazing 2015 with a fantastic match. It is precisely because of this fantastic year that Roddy is now more over as a babyface than he has even been, so it makes no sense to turn him right now.
VEDA SCOTT PROMO- she wasted time to tell us that she and ROH has reached a settlement about Cedric Alexander’s â€"unsafe working environment†lawsuit, but the details of it are confidential. This was a huge waste of PPV time, as these five minutes could have easily pushed either Roddy vs. Fish or the six man tag to the next level. This was a complete and total TV segment, and it would have made a lot more sense to save it for either the next night’s TV tapings, or even to put it off until the first set of tapings in 2016 and just do some interviews with Veda to cut into the next few weeks of TV to build up to this being resolved at the Jan. 9 tapings (which would allow you to avoid paying Cedric and Veda to come in this weekend, thus saving ROH money and letting the two of them work elsewhere if they want).
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Kingdom(c) (w/Maria Kanellis) vs. War Machine- 2.5/10
Kevin Kelly talks about how Philadelphia is a city that means so much to War Machine because of all of the important moments in their career that have happened here. If that’s the case, then maybe it would have been nice to have War Machine cut a promo about it at some point during the build-up to Final Battle.
The match itself was just a few big moves and then a finish. If you’re going to beat the Kingdom like this, then you might as well go all-in with it and have them just squash the Kingdom like Ciampa did to Matt Taven and the entire House of Truth in the TV Title match at Final Battle 2013.
WHITMER SEGMENT- Mr. Wrestling III went to the back because ROH was going to have two guest commentators call the main event with Kevin Kelly instead of him. After Mr. Wrestling III went to the back, though, BJ Whitmer jumped the guardrail and join Kevin on commentary. As Kevin Kelly noted, Whitmer was told he was not allowed to be in the building for this show. Security came out to get him to leave… and he did, without even beating any of the security guards up. This was yet another waste of PPV time, and while it didn’t go anywhere near as long as Veda’s promo, it was actually more disappointing because I had been assuming that banning Whitmer from the building for Final Battle and Whitmer vowing to show up anyway would lead to some sort of advancement in the story, like Whitmer unmasking Mr. Wrestling III as Steve Corino or something like that. Instead, we got absolutely nothing, which is the complete and total opposite of what should be happening on PPVs!
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/the House of Truth) vs. AJ Styles- 8.5/10
Nigel McGuinness and Jerry Lynn were the aforementioned guest commentators.
Lethal worked over AJ’s back, and the real-life situation with it made every bump AJ took feel scary (AJ seemed fine, though). Lethal also worked over AJ’s head and nailed AJ with a Cradle Piledriver and pointed at Jerry Lynn afterwards, so I guess they are actually building up to a fifty-two year old Jerry Lynn coming out of retirement to challenge for the ROH World Title. That seems completely unnecessary.
A pretty great show from ROH in the ring, but aside from the world title match and Cole vs. O’Reilly, I was very disappointed with this show. A PPV- especially when you only have four of them a year- is supposed to be a show of change. Where stories move forward or the status quo is shaken up. While that certainly did happen here, I found most of the changes to be either unwelcome (Roddy’s heel turn, the Boys returning to Castle), executed in disappointing fashion (the tag title change), or too small to be worthy of PPV time (the Veda/Cedric angle advancement). Combine this with the fact that we didn’t get any of the expect storyline advancement in Whitmer vs. Corino, got no real answer at all in the Shelley-Sabin story, and that the Boys returning to Castle is just a reversion to the old status quo, and it almost feels like nothing happened on this show. It’s worth watching for the wrestling, but if you want storyline advancement, this show wasn’t satisfying at all.
#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: The Briscoes vs. the All-Night Express vs. the Young Bucks- 6.75/10
Good, action-packed opener. ANX wins, which jut makes it even more baffling that Delirious has had them get pinned so many times since their big return three months ago with the â€"former champs who were never beaten for the belts†story.
DALTON CASTLE vs. SILAS YOUNG (w/the Boys)- 6.5/10
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- f*cking terrible.
So Silas demands that Castle admit that he (meaning Silas), is a man. Castle won’t do it, so Silas beats him up a bit. Silas then gets chairs and gives them to the Boys and tells Castle that I he doesn’t say what Silas wants, Silas will sic the Boys on him. Dalton finally gave in, saying that Silas was a real man, but then adding that he was â€"a foolish man. Because those are MY Boys.†Then the Boys attacked Silas with the chairs… despite the fact that just minutes ago, they were helping Silas in his match against Castle. Castle hit Silas with the Bangarang and let with the Boys, meaning that the net result of this feud has been absolutely nothing.
MICHAEL ELGIN vs. MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 6.25/10
The light-up collar on Moose’s football pads was embarrassingly lame. The match was fine, but I was hoping we’d be able to see a lot more out of Moose in this big spot.
ADAM COLE vs KYLE O’REILLY- 8.25/10
Now THIS is what comes to mind when I think â€"ROH PPV!†Awesome match with both guys working over body parts, and a great finish.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- you know how Adam Cole has two arms? Well Kyle O’Reilly is trying his damnedest to take of them home with him.
KNIGHTS OF THE RISING DAWN vs. ALEX SHELLEY, MATT SYDAL, & ACH- 7.25/10
Great match, aside from one botch by ACH and Sabin. The fact that they kept Sabin and Shelley apart the whole time was pretty disappointing, though.
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Roderick Strong(c) vs. Bobby Fish- 7.25/10
A great match, but I am disappointed in both the turn (the fact that it happened- the execution was fine), and also the fact that Roderick didn’t get to close out his amazing 2015 with a fantastic match. It is precisely because of this fantastic year that Roddy is now more over as a babyface than he has even been, so it makes no sense to turn him right now.
VEDA SCOTT PROMO- she wasted time to tell us that she and ROH has reached a settlement about Cedric Alexander’s â€"unsafe working environment†lawsuit, but the details of it are confidential. This was a huge waste of PPV time, as these five minutes could have easily pushed either Roddy vs. Fish or the six man tag to the next level. This was a complete and total TV segment, and it would have made a lot more sense to save it for either the next night’s TV tapings, or even to put it off until the first set of tapings in 2016 and just do some interviews with Veda to cut into the next few weeks of TV to build up to this being resolved at the Jan. 9 tapings (which would allow you to avoid paying Cedric and Veda to come in this weekend, thus saving ROH money and letting the two of them work elsewhere if they want).
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Kingdom(c) (w/Maria Kanellis) vs. War Machine- 2.5/10
Kevin Kelly talks about how Philadelphia is a city that means so much to War Machine because of all of the important moments in their career that have happened here. If that’s the case, then maybe it would have been nice to have War Machine cut a promo about it at some point during the build-up to Final Battle.
The match itself was just a few big moves and then a finish. If you’re going to beat the Kingdom like this, then you might as well go all-in with it and have them just squash the Kingdom like Ciampa did to Matt Taven and the entire House of Truth in the TV Title match at Final Battle 2013.
WHITMER SEGMENT- Mr. Wrestling III went to the back because ROH was going to have two guest commentators call the main event with Kevin Kelly instead of him. After Mr. Wrestling III went to the back, though, BJ Whitmer jumped the guardrail and join Kevin on commentary. As Kevin Kelly noted, Whitmer was told he was not allowed to be in the building for this show. Security came out to get him to leave… and he did, without even beating any of the security guards up. This was yet another waste of PPV time, and while it didn’t go anywhere near as long as Veda’s promo, it was actually more disappointing because I had been assuming that banning Whitmer from the building for Final Battle and Whitmer vowing to show up anyway would lead to some sort of advancement in the story, like Whitmer unmasking Mr. Wrestling III as Steve Corino or something like that. Instead, we got absolutely nothing, which is the complete and total opposite of what should be happening on PPVs!
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/the House of Truth) vs. AJ Styles- 8.5/10
Nigel McGuinness and Jerry Lynn were the aforementioned guest commentators.
Lethal worked over AJ’s back, and the real-life situation with it made every bump AJ took feel scary (AJ seemed fine, though). Lethal also worked over AJ’s head and nailed AJ with a Cradle Piledriver and pointed at Jerry Lynn afterwards, so I guess they are actually building up to a fifty-two year old Jerry Lynn coming out of retirement to challenge for the ROH World Title. That seems completely unnecessary.
A pretty great show from ROH in the ring, but aside from the world title match and Cole vs. O’Reilly, I was very disappointed with this show. A PPV- especially when you only have four of them a year- is supposed to be a show of change. Where stories move forward or the status quo is shaken up. While that certainly did happen here, I found most of the changes to be either unwelcome (Roddy’s heel turn, the Boys returning to Castle), executed in disappointing fashion (the tag title change), or too small to be worthy of PPV time (the Veda/Cedric angle advancement). Combine this with the fact that we didn’t get any of the expect storyline advancement in Whitmer vs. Corino, got no real answer at all in the Shelley-Sabin story, and that the Boys returning to Castle is just a reversion to the old status quo, and it almost feels like nothing happened on this show. It’s worth watching for the wrestling, but if you want storyline advancement, this show wasn’t satisfying at all.