BRM Reviews ROH Road to Final Battle 2015

[Big Red Machine]

ROH Road to Final Battle (12/5/2015)- Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Kevin Kelly and Mr. Wrestling III are on commentary. Mr. Wrestling III is wearing a neck brace in solidarity with his good friend Steve Corino, and says he will wear it until Corino no longer needs a neck brace.

MARK BRISCOE vs. WILL FERRARA- 4.75/10
Kevin Kelly talked about how whatever was written in Prince Nana’s mystery envelope has given Ferrara the “keys to success” and made him a better wrestler. If the angle is that Nana gave him the secrets to success, maybe you should actually let him win a match (without needing to rely on Whitmer accidentally distracting Adam Page) to show us?

TIM HUGHES vs. KYLE O’REILLY- squash
Kevin Kelly said it would be reDRagon vs. Addiction at Final Battle? Since when is this happening? Aren’t Bobby and Kyle wrestling Roddy and Cole respectively?

KYLE O’REILLY PROMO- good words, but now I’m really confused. Kyle says that at Final Battle, he is going to beat Adam Cole and become the next ROH World Champion… except that Jay Lethal is the champion, and he is defending against AJ Styles.

KENNY KING vs. ADAM COLE- 6.25/10
Kenny King could have sold his knee better. I don’t know why they only gave these two eleven minutes.

WAR MACHINE vs. THE DIRTY BLONDES- squash

ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Roderick Strong(c) vs. Delirious- 6.75/10
Some dumbasses in the crowd were trying to sing the NXT fans’ new Hype Bros/Bayley song with Roddy’s name. Some more sensible fan told them to shut up.

FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL MATCH: Dalton Castle vs. Rhett Titus vs. Cheeseburger vs. Moose (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 5.5/10
The match was fun. They did one spot where… well… let’s just say that Cheeseburger has a lot of trust in Dalton Castle and Moose, because I thought he was going to fall right on his head and die in that spot.
The announcers put over the teamwork showed by Dalton Castle and Cheeseburger, so before anyone else gets to it, I will officially name their team “White Castle Burger.”

The announcers talked about how Cheeseburger and Rhett Titus apparently frequently wrestle each other at the ROH dojo in “training situations.” Are they seriously trying to pretend that Rhett Titus, who won the ROH World Tag Team Titles THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO is still training?

reDRagon vs. ACH & ALEX SHELLEY- 7.5/10
This was originally supposed to be ACH vs. Fish, but ACH asked to make it a tag match instead. It would have been nice if he had explained that this would let him and Shelley get some teamwork in before they team up at Final Battle (or at least had the announcers make mention of this). It also would have been nice if they could have had someone official like Nigel (or even Cary Silkin, who was SITTING RIGHT THERE AT RINGSIDE) to officially okay the change to the card.
The match was great, but it was really one of those situations where neither team should have been losing.

JAY BRISCOE vs. MATT SYDAL- 7.25/10
A great match, but I was expecting more.
Kevin Kelly brought up the fact that Jay Briscoe still hasn’t gotten his rematch for the ROH World Title yet. Well… what are they waiting for?

THE YOUNG BUCKS vs. THE HOUSE OF TRUTH (w/Truth Martini & Taeler Hendrix)- 7.25/10
Some great action, but 1) this match never should have happened and 2) the Bucks are doing stuff that is (IMO) detrimental to future business. I’ll address #2 first:
There was no reason for Taeler Hendrix to take a superkick (or any sort of bump). Heel managers should be protected so that it feels special when they take a bump. Also, there was NO REASON for the Bucks to taking Dijak and having just one of them hold him up for the Indy-Taker or More Bang For Your Buck (both of which happened). He’s the biggest guy in the company and if you want to bill him as a giant (relative to the rest of the roster), he shouldn’t be getting lifted up like this. In fact, one of Delirious’ biggest failings this year has been the abysmal booking of Donovan Dijak, which brings us to #1:
Lethal is the champ so he can’t lose, the Bucks are going into a #1 contendership match at the PPV, so they shouldn’t lose, either, and Dijak is supposed to be a big, scary enforcer, which is totally undermined by having him lose all the time! Furthermore, this match was completely meaningless, so it easily could have been replaced. It wasn’t essential to any story. It wasn’t even helpful to any story because they didn’t even do anything like have the H.O.T. beat up AJ Styles’ friends the Young Bucks to get heat on Lethal going into his title defense against AJ.

This show was not only very short (just over two hours and thirteen minutes), but also very disappointing. I was expecting a lot more out of King vs. Cole, Roddy vs. Delirious, and Jay vs. Sydal, plus we barely got to see War Machine do anything. And it’s not like they used the extra time for anything, either. They could have at least tried to give a guy Ferrara time to show what he can do, but instead they just putting him out there to lose to Mark Briscoe in an unremarkable eight minutes.

I also think ROH made a big mistake by not using this show to set up a back-up plan of some sort in case AJ Styles’ injury prevents him from wrestling at Final Battle. What I would have done was given Moose a Proving Ground match with Lethal on this show (his Proving Ground match in Chicago three months ago got messed up by Cedric Alexander, and Cedric isn’t here to ruin things this time), and have him go to a draw to earn the title shot. If AJ can’t go at Final Battle, you use this excuse to add Lethal to the Moose vs. Elgin match and make it a title match as both men are now due title shots. Lethal would pin Moose to retain, and you can still give Elgin his title shot at the Tokyo Dome under the justification that he wasn’t pinned in the title match. If AJ can go at Final Battle, you can just give Moose his title shot when ROH debuts in Duluth, GA on January 23rd.

Anyhow, this was a disappointing show from ROH, and definitely a step down from the consistently high quality of their in-ring work this year.

[Big Red Machine]

For added fun, here is how I would have booked this card so as to actually try to build some heat for Final Battle rather than just booking random matches like Delirious did:

The pre-show dark match would be Colby vs. some local guy.

I'd open with Roddy making an open challenge for the TV Title, which would be answered by one of the Dirty Blondes (large dudes with blond hair). Roddy would use technique and submissions to take him down and make him tap.


Dijak def. Castle
(This could be kind of a “look how far these two have come since the beginning of the year when they were completely unknown," type of match. The win for Dijak could build him up to receive the TV Title shot he never used because he joined the HOT instead)


We'd then do a "random draw" six man mayhem match, which would be...
Kyle O'Reilly vs. Tim Hughes vs. Mark Briscoe vs. Rhett Titus vs. Matt Jackson vs. Nick Jackson
The story would be the Bucks working together to get an advantage. This would force Mark and Rhett to work together to combat this advantage, but one would accidentally hit the other and they would start fighting. O'Reilly would get the win by making Hughes tap out.


War Machine def. Martin Stone & Shaheem Ali (they both worked dark matches on this show)
War Machine would get the win, hitting the decently-large Stone with their power moves for the finish.


Adam Cole def. Kenny King
This would be the match before intermission so that they can go a bit nuts

Will Ferrara def. Aaron Solo
Popcorn match.

Bobby Fish vs. the other Dirty Blonde
Fish would win similarly to the way Roddy did earlier so that the announcers can put over the similarity in styles between the two Final Battle opponents.

ACH & Alex Shelley def. Cheeseburger & Delirious
ACH & Shelley get the chance to develop some chemistry before their six man at Final Battle. Cheeseburger taps out to Shelley's Border City Stretch.

Moose-Lethal proving ground draw

Matt Sydal vs. Jay Briscoe
Not sure who wins, but let them go nuts.