BRM Reviews the 3/9/2023 ROH (featuring the best women's match in ROH history)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 3/9/2023 ROH (featuring the best women's match in ROH history)

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 15th, '23, 23:59

ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Samoa Joe(c) vs. Tony Deppen- 5.5/10
Joe won a surprisingly short match cleanly. If they’re not using Deppen anymore and just wanted to use him to put Joe over then this was fine, but if Deppen is sticking around, this immediately devalues him (consider that Slim J last much longer against Mark Briscoe in last week’s opener).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Joe says he runs things around here and he wants some competition. Mark Briscoe comes out to a big pop and says that he wants a title shot. Joe accepts.

DALTON CASTLE PROMO- fine
He and the Boys are on a mission to recapture the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Titles.


DALTON CASTLE & THE BOYS vs. CODY CHHUN, GUILLERMO ROSAS, & MARCUS KROSS- no rating, meh squash
This went two seconds longer than the non-squash TV Title match. I’m willing to give this a pass because it was focused on getting over Dalton’s signature mores as well as the trio’s signature moves, but I really hope that after the title shot that this leads to, this is the end of the Boys as wrestlers.

OGK PROMO- not good
They just don’t come off as a top act. Bennett came off like he was trying too hard and Taven was just goofy. In particular, he needs to lose the “he is I and I am him” bit. Monty Brown made it work in TNA because Monty Brown came off as a crazy person. Maria was mostly good, though. They’re upset because Top Flight ruined their moment at Final Battle 2022 by beating them on the pre-show.

LA FACCION INGOBERNABLE (Rush & Dralistico) (w/Jose the Assistant) vs. SPANISH ANNOUNCE PROJECT (Serpentico & Angelico) (w/Dr. Luther)- DUD!
The fans are cheering for Rush for some reason. I don’t understand why Tony Khan let his politically sabotaging bullsh*t ass anywhere near either of his companies. This was basically a nine-minute squash. LFI got in seven minutes of offense. At that point I had been begging for the match to end for about two minutes, so seeing Serpentico start to get in offense just made me angry. Rush took Serpentico’s mask off after the match just to be an asshole.

TRISH ADORA vs. BILLIE STARKS- 6.25/10
Adora won cleanly.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS CHRISTOPHER DANIELS-mixed
Daniels wants to become ROH World Tag Team Champion again. He can’t team with Kazarian because of the stupid stipulation the two of them pointlessly imposed upon themselves in AEW, but he has another former partner looking for an opportunity in ROH, and that is Matt Sydal. Sydal showed up and cut a bad promo. I know they have never been his strong suit, but this was the most generic crap eve, delivered blandly, and ending with the terrible catchphrase “we’ll die flyin’ or we’ll die tryin’.” So either way you die?
The terribleness of Sydal’s promo aside, I like the idea of reuniting this team from ROH’s past. I wouldn’t put the belts on them or anything, but there is a good story to be told in them trying to regain them.


JAKE CRIST & “MANSCOUT” JAKE MANNING vs. TRUSTBUSTERS (Ariya Daivari & Slim J) (w/Mark Sterling)- squash
Why are these clowns here?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- okay
Daivari starts bragging about having beaten Metalik last week “all by myself.” I hate this stupid cartoonish heel schtick. Metalik came out to get some revenge, but was beaten down because the heels had superior numbers. Blake Christian, who has apparently occasionally teamed with Metalik on NJPW Strong, came out with a chair to make the save.
Look… this has been a fine little story these past two weeks, but this is supposed to be Ring of Honor. Is it too much to ask to have generic mean guys like the Factory be the heels here instead of this group of clowns?

They advertised that LFI will be in action next week. After what we saw earlier, how the f*ck could they possibly think that anyone would see that as a positive thing?

ROH PURE TITLE MATCH: Wheeler YUTA(c) vs. Timothy Thatcher- 8/10
This “new era” of ROH would have been a perfect excuse to switch back to the original version of the Pure rules where there were no judges for a draw and where instead of the second closed-fist strike the face being an automatic DQ, it- and any subsequent ones- would cost you a rope-break, and you only got disqualified when you ran out of rope-breaks to pay with, Tony Khan has chosen to keep Delirious’ stupider version of the rules. And, in typical Tony Khan fashion, he has chosen to compound that by adding in a completely avoidable problem of his own. In this case, said problem is that two of the three judges (Christopher Daniels and Colt Cabana) are active ROH wrestlers (BJ Whitmer is the third judge). You don’t let active competitors be judges for matches because they could vote based on what is best for them rather than who they actually thought deserved to win.
What Tony did decide to change, though, is the graphic on the screen that kept track of the time limit and how many rope-breaks each competitor has left. And by “change” I mean that he changed from having one to not having one.
There was a lot of fun limb-work and stiff striking here. YUTA won by punching Thatcher in the face behind the referee’s back when he had already been warned, and after using that to stop Thatcher’s momentum, he locked in a submission in the ropes and Thatcher had no rope-breaks left so he had to tap out. Props to Ian Riccaboni for immediately pouncing on YUTA and making it clear that this was a turn and we are supposed to be very disapproving of what YUTA has done here.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- very disappointing
YUTA essentially bragged about how great his buddies are. I thought saying that he was on the ‘96 Bulls while making it clear that he was neither Jordan, Pippen or Rodman was an excellent heel line.
Then he started to cut a promo on the NJPW L.A. Dojo trainees. Who could POSSIBLY care about that feud? Clark Connors came out and snatched the mic away from YUTA and started to cut a good promo on YUTA… until he said that Danielson, Moxley, and Claudio “wish they could train under Katsuyori Shibata.”
Are you kidding me? First of all, this just makes Connors look like an ass. Those three guys are all former multi-time world champions. Two of them are in their forties. They don’t wish they were training under anyone. Secondly, and even more problematically, what Connors said is the basically “my mentor is better than your mentor,” which is the pro wrestling equivalent of one six-year-old telling another “my dad could beat up your dad!”
Connors challenged YUTA to put the Pure Title on the line next week, but YUTA just walked away… but then he stopped on the ramp and accepted. Perhaps Claudio will lecture YUTA about this, but at this point it feels a lot more like him walking off by then stopping on the ramp before accepting the challenge was done just to swerve people.

AUSSIE OPEN vs. RHETT TITUS & TRACY WILLIAMS- 7/10
A solid win for Aussie Open.

EDDIE KINGSTON vs. BEN DEJO- squash

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good, but…
Kingston calls out ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli. Claudio comes out onto the stage, and Kingston tells Claudio “for once in your life, do business correctly” and give him a title shot. Claudio tells Kingston that “a man without honor will never be Ring of Honor Champion,” and leaves. Kingston stomped around a bit in the ring doing a great pantomime “can you believe this guy?” kind of thing, then headed to the back as well.
We then cut to Lexi Nair intercepting Claudio for an interview. She asks him about what he said to Kingston, and Claudio simply replies “did I stutter?” and then walks off. An enraged Eddie Kingston soon showed up demanding to know where Claudio was. Lexi told Kinston that Claudio had left, and Kingston said “of course he did” and went to go fume to release his frustration.
The execution here was very good, but the thing that is keeping me from getting into this angle is that it feels like I have been suddenly thrown into some alternate reality where Adam Pearce stayed as booker, Davey Richards actually did retire at the end of 2010, WGTT never came in for more than that one match at Glory By Honor IX, Claudio never went to WWE but Chris Hero still did, and Kevin Steen never returned after losing to El Generico at Final Battle 2010, and now it’s about mid-2012 and Kingston has come back in now that Hero has left and is chasing heel champion Claudio and they’re playing off of the Hero-Kingston feud with Claudio not quite standing in for Hero so much as being someone who they pivoted to in an attempt to try to salvage the story. Claudio’s sudden heelishness has come about so abruptly and I still don’t know why Kingston quit AEW or why Tony Khan would then allow him to show up in ROH, and Kingston’s comments to Claudio seem to be implying some kind of political machinations and/or ignoring the fact that Claudio has been a babyface for a long time now in AEW and in WWE before that (or else why would he say “for once in your life, do the right thing?”). It all feels like something that fits the archetypes that I know these characters are playing in this story, but what I am seeing from them here does not at all feel like it fits what I saw them doing in AEW right before this started.

ATHENA VS. WILLOW NIGHTINGALE VIDEO PACKAGE- great!

ROH WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE MATCH: Athena(c) vs. Willow Nightingale- 8.25/10
This was the best women’s match in ROH history. The cut-off spot looked embarrassingly weak, and they seemed to realize that and decide that they needed to spend the rest of the match trying to make up for it, because everything else from that point on looked absolutely BRUTAL! And this wasn’t just them hitting each other hard, either. There was a heck of a story here, with Willow as the underdog who the champion doesn’t take seriously at first but winds up learning over the course of the match that she has vastly underestimated the challenger.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
If Athena putting her hands on the referee and also attacking Willow and kneeing her head into the steps isn’t going to go somewhere, I’d have much preferred that they not do it.

This was, overall, a better show than last week. There are still some major issues in terms of talent use, but there does at least seem to be an effort to give us some stories. I just wish that they would cut out some of the talent and use that time for others and to focus more on the stories of those others.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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