ROH Winter Warriors Tour: Dayton
ROH Winter Warriors Tour: Dayton (1/31/2015)- Dayton, OH
Scarlet Bordeaux has died her hair a pale pink. It’s horrid. To the point that she’s almost not hot anymore.
WILL FERRARA vs. THE ROMANTIC TOUCH- 5.5/10
A fun opener that started out with some comedy, but transitioned into some innovative wrestling, especially from The Romantic Touch, who pulled out some stuff I’ve never seen before.
MICHAEL ELGIN vs. CHRIS DICKINSON- 6.75/10
Obviously Dickinson wasn’t going to win, but they gave this enough time that he was able to at least come off as a threat. I’d be fine seeing him come back.
TOMMASO CIAMPA vs. MICHAEL BENNETT (w/Maria Kanellis & Matt Taven)- 6/10
They brawled on the outside way too long early in the match. During this brawl, one of the Knight of the Rising Dawn guys was in the crowd and had a brief staredown with Ciampa, which distracted Ciampa, allowing Taven to hit him with an enzugiri. That spot was actually the start of the real story of the match, which was typical Kingdom dog and pony show type stuff while Ciampa, for his part, tried to knock Bennett out with a bunch of knees.
At one point the Kingdom decided that they had had enough and went to leave, but Hanson came out, forearmed Taven, then through Bennett back into the ring. We get a series of spots that then set up Ciampa and Hanson shoving each other in the ring while the Kingdom was on the outside, at which point Taven cut a great heel promo saying he wanted to have a tag team match, which was all well and good, except that we never got an announced finish to the Ciampa vs. Bennett match (personally I think Ciampa got DQed because of Hanson and I thought I heard a bell, but we never got any sort of announcement because Taven snatched the mic away from Scarlett so he could cut his promo. Anyway, the babyfaces accepted Taven’s challenge and we wound up with…
TOMMASO CIAMPA & HANSON vs. THE KINGDOM (w/Maria Kanellis)- 8/10
Aside from the fact that Tod Sinclair just never gave a crap who the legal man was, this was awesome! All-out balls-to-the-wall action (and it’s always nice to see new faces step up and put on main-event caliber matches).
KEVIN KELLY INTERVIEWS MIKEY â€"ZEROE†DOMBROWKSI- apparently this guy is a wrestling promoter who will be a contestant on The Amazing Race next season. I’m not certain, but it’s entirely possible he is related to occasional ROH commentator Joe Dombrowski. He put ROH over.
The House of Truth came out to interrupt him and Jay Lethal declared that once he retains the TV Title against Alberto El Patron at the 13th Anniversary Show, he will have â€"beaten the entire locker room†(a blatant heel lie) and thus his title will be the most prestigious title in the company. Jay Diesel got in Dombrowski’s face, and this resulted in…
THE HOUSE OF TRUTH (w/Truth Martini) vs. CHEESEBURGER & FRED â€"BIG MAC†SAMPSON (w/Mikey Dombrowski)- 4.25/10
â€"Cheeseburger & Big Mac?†Get it? Yeah…
Anyway, the match was perfectly good for what it was.
THE DECADE vs. AEROFORM- 4.5/10
Louis Lyndon’s need to constantly make noise was extremely annoying to the point that I cheered every time Jacobs or Whitmer just hit him in the mouth.
ALBERTO EL PATRON vs. RODERICK STRONG- 8.5/10
Maria is on commentary now, and she actually calls New Japan out for focusing the camera on her ass whenever she’s there.
Roddy’s shoulder is taped up after his TV Title match last night. Alberto obviously focused on it, but they both also took some hard shots to the head as well (including a dive by Alberto that appeared to have broken Roddy’s nose while torpedoing Alberto’s own head into the barricade). The match was awesome, just like we all knew it would be.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- BJ Whitmer attacked Roderick Strong. Del Rio made the save. Good stuff.
STOKELY HATHAWAY (& MOOSE) PROMO- bad. I couldn’t hear a damn word he said aside from â€"ROH World Championship†because his music was playing the entire time. Hathaway then went to replace Maria on commentary.
THE BRISCOES vs. MATT SYDAL & ACH- 8/10
ACH is wearing an AJ Styles â€"Phenomenal 1†t-shirt (probably available from the shop at http://www.ROHWrestling.com) but he had a piece of tape on it and wrote â€"The New†above the logo to imply that he is the new phenomenal one to build up to his upcoming PPV match against AJ Styles.
Jay Briscoe appears to be wearing a camera on his head.
The match was awesome, but I really think the wrong team won. Sydal and ACH both have bigger singles matches coming up at the 13th Anniversary Show than Mark Briscoe does, and a win over the Briscoes would be a big deal for this ACH & Sydal team that ROH is trying to establish.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Moose beat up both Briscoes and also Matt Sydal, but ACH made the save, building up to their match at the next show.
In terms of the big picture, this show was pretty much just filler (which is understandable considering that they didn't have AJ Styles, the Young Bucks, reDRagon, or Cedric Alexander), but the in-ring action was awesome, and being awesome filler makes it feel a lot less like filler. Definitely recommended if you want some awesome wrestling.
Scarlet Bordeaux has died her hair a pale pink. It’s horrid. To the point that she’s almost not hot anymore.
WILL FERRARA vs. THE ROMANTIC TOUCH- 5.5/10
A fun opener that started out with some comedy, but transitioned into some innovative wrestling, especially from The Romantic Touch, who pulled out some stuff I’ve never seen before.
MICHAEL ELGIN vs. CHRIS DICKINSON- 6.75/10
Obviously Dickinson wasn’t going to win, but they gave this enough time that he was able to at least come off as a threat. I’d be fine seeing him come back.
TOMMASO CIAMPA vs. MICHAEL BENNETT (w/Maria Kanellis & Matt Taven)- 6/10
They brawled on the outside way too long early in the match. During this brawl, one of the Knight of the Rising Dawn guys was in the crowd and had a brief staredown with Ciampa, which distracted Ciampa, allowing Taven to hit him with an enzugiri. That spot was actually the start of the real story of the match, which was typical Kingdom dog and pony show type stuff while Ciampa, for his part, tried to knock Bennett out with a bunch of knees.
At one point the Kingdom decided that they had had enough and went to leave, but Hanson came out, forearmed Taven, then through Bennett back into the ring. We get a series of spots that then set up Ciampa and Hanson shoving each other in the ring while the Kingdom was on the outside, at which point Taven cut a great heel promo saying he wanted to have a tag team match, which was all well and good, except that we never got an announced finish to the Ciampa vs. Bennett match (personally I think Ciampa got DQed because of Hanson and I thought I heard a bell, but we never got any sort of announcement because Taven snatched the mic away from Scarlett so he could cut his promo. Anyway, the babyfaces accepted Taven’s challenge and we wound up with…
TOMMASO CIAMPA & HANSON vs. THE KINGDOM (w/Maria Kanellis)- 8/10
Aside from the fact that Tod Sinclair just never gave a crap who the legal man was, this was awesome! All-out balls-to-the-wall action (and it’s always nice to see new faces step up and put on main-event caliber matches).
KEVIN KELLY INTERVIEWS MIKEY â€"ZEROE†DOMBROWKSI- apparently this guy is a wrestling promoter who will be a contestant on The Amazing Race next season. I’m not certain, but it’s entirely possible he is related to occasional ROH commentator Joe Dombrowski. He put ROH over.
The House of Truth came out to interrupt him and Jay Lethal declared that once he retains the TV Title against Alberto El Patron at the 13th Anniversary Show, he will have â€"beaten the entire locker room†(a blatant heel lie) and thus his title will be the most prestigious title in the company. Jay Diesel got in Dombrowski’s face, and this resulted in…
THE HOUSE OF TRUTH (w/Truth Martini) vs. CHEESEBURGER & FRED â€"BIG MAC†SAMPSON (w/Mikey Dombrowski)- 4.25/10
â€"Cheeseburger & Big Mac?†Get it? Yeah…
Anyway, the match was perfectly good for what it was.
THE DECADE vs. AEROFORM- 4.5/10
Louis Lyndon’s need to constantly make noise was extremely annoying to the point that I cheered every time Jacobs or Whitmer just hit him in the mouth.
ALBERTO EL PATRON vs. RODERICK STRONG- 8.5/10
Maria is on commentary now, and she actually calls New Japan out for focusing the camera on her ass whenever she’s there.
Roddy’s shoulder is taped up after his TV Title match last night. Alberto obviously focused on it, but they both also took some hard shots to the head as well (including a dive by Alberto that appeared to have broken Roddy’s nose while torpedoing Alberto’s own head into the barricade). The match was awesome, just like we all knew it would be.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- BJ Whitmer attacked Roderick Strong. Del Rio made the save. Good stuff.
STOKELY HATHAWAY (& MOOSE) PROMO- bad. I couldn’t hear a damn word he said aside from â€"ROH World Championship†because his music was playing the entire time. Hathaway then went to replace Maria on commentary.
THE BRISCOES vs. MATT SYDAL & ACH- 8/10
ACH is wearing an AJ Styles â€"Phenomenal 1†t-shirt (probably available from the shop at http://www.ROHWrestling.com) but he had a piece of tape on it and wrote â€"The New†above the logo to imply that he is the new phenomenal one to build up to his upcoming PPV match against AJ Styles.
Jay Briscoe appears to be wearing a camera on his head.
The match was awesome, but I really think the wrong team won. Sydal and ACH both have bigger singles matches coming up at the 13th Anniversary Show than Mark Briscoe does, and a win over the Briscoes would be a big deal for this ACH & Sydal team that ROH is trying to establish.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Moose beat up both Briscoes and also Matt Sydal, but ACH made the save, building up to their match at the next show.
In terms of the big picture, this show was pretty much just filler (which is understandable considering that they didn't have AJ Styles, the Young Bucks, reDRagon, or Cedric Alexander), but the in-ring action was awesome, and being awesome filler makes it feel a lot less like filler. Definitely recommended if you want some awesome wrestling.