BRM Reviews the 3/2/2023 ROH on Honor Club (not what it needed to be)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 3/2/2023 ROH on Honor Club (not what it needed to be)

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 5th, '23, 12:10

Ian Riccaboni and Caprice Coleman are your commentary team.

MARK BRISCOE vs. SLIM J (w/Ari Daivari & Mark Sterling)- 5.5/10
Slim J did technically shake Mark’s hand before the match, but he then kicked it away. The story of this match was Mark overcoming interference and distractions from the outside and getting the win. Mark was much more in the goofy hillbilly role that I hate, as opposed to the badass redneck he should be. If I were booking this, I would have started off this “new era of Ring of Honor” with something a lot less run-of-the-mill, and something that would set a tone for the promotion rather than the exceedingly generic match that we got here.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS TONY DEPPEN- bad
Deppen is now a goof who read his promo off of a sheet of paper. It felt like this was someone taking a shot at WWE writers for no real reason, and with the only result being that a talented wrestler winds up looking like a goof. He’s getting an ROH World TV Title shot next week.

THE INFANTRY (Carlie Bravo & Shawn Dean) vs. The Kingdom (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) (w/Maria Kanellis-Bennett)- 4/10
It seemed like the Kingdom were supposed to be heels, but I’m not totally sure. This should have just been a squash, as the Infantry came off like goofs.

At this point, I’m a little concerned that I’m just watching AEW Dark.

NJPW WORLD TV TITLE MATCH: Zack Sabre Jr.(c) vs. Blake Christian- 7/10
Both guys got nice little video packages before this match, but a defense of a random NJPW title defense really isn’t something that makes me feel like this is a “new” era of ROH. This title has a fifteen-minute time limit, and the more the announcers tell me that ZSJ is perfect for this title because he can just wrestle defensively for fifteen minutes and not worry about actually trying to win, the stupider it makes me think this time limit is.
Zack was a great cocky heel while still wrestling cleanly, and Christian was a good babyface. Christian worked the neck while Zack worked first the wrist and then also the neck. Zack won cleanly, but Christian had a very good showing and very clearly felt like he was two levels above the losers of the previous matches. During the match, Zack called out Bryan Danielson. If that match has a fifteen-minute time limit, I will be extremely upset.

REALLY DUMB SH*T HAPPENS BACKSTAGE- dumb
Lexi Nair is standing by with Mark Sterling, Ari Daivari, and Konosuke Takeshita. One of Sterling’s other clients, Josh Woods, is scheduled to face Takeshita tonight, but doesn’t want to, so Sterling has decided that he will insult Takeshita and then try to convince Takeshita to agree to call off the match. Not only that, but Sterling seems to think that if the match just doesn’t happen, they get to split the winner’s purse. And he thinks that Takeshita is dumb enough to agree to a split where Takeshita gets less money. And possibly the worst part of all is that he thought that instead of just approaching Takeshita in secret, he should make sure that there were cameras there to broadcast his attempted collusion. Daivari, also being an idiot, offers to throw in $10,000 for Takeshita, so that’s now outright bribery. Sterling gave Takeshita a contract, which Takeshita tore up. This is exactly the sort of sh*t that I don’t want anywhere near my professional wrestling.

CHRISTOPHER DANIELS PROMO- very good
He talked about how twenty-one years ago, ROH reinvigorated pro wrestling, and since then, two things have not changed: The competition is as tough as ever, and Christopher Daniels is in the thick of it.

CHRISTOPHER DANIELS vs. ROHIT RAJU (w/Jora Johl)- 4.5/10
Can someone please tell Rohit Raju to change his Twitter handle to match his current ring-name?
Daniels won cleanly in five minutes. This was a shorter and worse version of the opener (although at least it didn’t have the goofiness that the opener did).

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS RHETT TITUS & TRACY WILLIAMS- snore
They’re still doing the “we want to restore honor to Ring of Honor” gimmick. You can’t do that storyline effectively if you haven’t established a baseline. I’ve been seeing this angle for four years now, and it hasn’t gone anywhere. Yes, there is a new guy booking now, but based on the new guy’s body of work, I have no faith that he won’t make the exact same mistakes as the old guy.
Aussie open then showed up and objected to Rhett and Tracy having claimed to be the best tag team in ROH, so they agreed to a match next week. Based on Kyle Fletcher’s tone, I highly doubt Aussie Open will adhere to the parts of the Code of Honor about not cheating.

KONOSUKE TAKESHITA vs. JOSH WOODS (w/Mark Sterling)- 7.5/10
Takeshita won cleanly. This was a much more puro style than Woods usually wrestles.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI- good
Lexi referred to Claudio as the “ROH Heavyweight Champion.” It’s ROH World Champion. There is no “heavyweight” in the name, and there never has been. How did they not cut right there and reshoot this? It was the first damn thing she said.
Claudio cut a good promo hyping up his title defense against A.R. Fox in tonight’s main event. They really need to stop referring to it as “ROH on Honor Club.” It sounds so odd and lame, and name-dropping the platform sounds very outdated to me unless you’re actually on a TV channel. It feels similar to when they used to make a point of referring to their tapings as “international TV tapings.” You’re hyping up something that feels so mundane as to not be worth hyping. If you need something to call the show to differentiate it from the promotion itself, just some up with an actual name, like “Mat Wars” or “WrestleFest” or something like that. Or something better than that. I don’t have a marketing degree.

JOEY KEYS, LSG, & REX LAWLESS vs. THE EMBASSY (Brian Cage, Toa Liona, & Bishop Kaun) (w/Prince Nana)- meh squash
They did this thing in the beginning before the bell where the Embassy surrounded the ring and Lawless and Keys got taken out one at a time before Cage got into the ring to attack LSG, but it looked so goofy, with the first guy getting low-bridged and then beaten up on the outside, then the second guy getting pulled out of the ring, and then Cage getting into the ring… but one at a time rather than using the fact that the others were distracted watching their friend get beaten up because if they had two things going on at once, we wouldn’t be able to see everything on camera. I continue to have no interest whatsoever in anything involving the new Embassy or the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Titles.

METALIK VIDEO PACKAGE- good
Finally! Someone who feels fresh and new and exciting.

METALIK vs. ARI DAIVARI (w/Mark Sterling & Slim J)- 5.75/10
Metalik did not get his entrance shown. Ian Riccaboni actually had an explanation for this, which was that Daivari bribed people not to play Metalik’s entrance. Okay… so whoever it is in the production truck who took the money is going to be fired, right? And why would Daivari even care about this? This is the sort of cartoonish sh*t that ROH was created specifically not to be!
In trying to get over that Daivari is filthy rich, Ian told us that wrestlers have to pay lots of fees for licenses and stuff if they want to have people at ringside with them. So any time someone brings their tag partner to ringside, they have to pay a fee? That’s what this means, right? Ian can’t be talking about just a regular wrestler or manager’s license, because that would be irrelevant in this case, because Slim J clearly has a wrestler’s license, already because he wrestled earlier, and Sterling clearly already has a manager’s license because of all of the managing he has done in AEW and other places.
This was yet another “lots of interference” match, but this time the heels won. That caught me off guard. Interference needs to pay off for the heels at some point, yes, but giving Daivari the win here seems like the wrong call to me. And this is coming from someone who actually likes Ari Daivari. Go read my reviews of his time on 205 Live. But AEW has treated him like such a joke that even losing because of interference and despite getting a visual pinfall, it still feels like this loss drags Metalik down rather than bringing Daivari up.

LEXI NAIR INTERVIEWS A.R. FOX- mostly great
Fox cut a great little promo about how he tried to get into ROH a decade ago and wasn’t invited back, so he has busted his ass and now here he is in the main event of this big show. The only issues were the fact that he seems completely unaware that this is a world title match, and the fact that instead of saying “new era” it sounded like he said “new error.” I guess “the New Whore” Sami Callihan finally has some company in the annals of people who made embarrassing mistakes in their introductory ROH TV promos.

THE RENEGADES vs. SKYE BLUE & MADISON RAYNE- 4.75/10
Babyfaces win clean.

We got a quick video telling us that Dalton Castle would be in action next week. We would later get one for Samoa Joe as well.

IAN RICCABONI INTERVIEWS WHEELER YUTA- good
YUTA takes offense to Ian referring to him as the “junior member” of the Blackpool Combat Club. He also seemingly only brought YUTA out here to ask him about Claudio’s match. That’s uncharacteristically rude of Ian. YUTA said that he wasn’t the “junior member” of anything. He’s a champion. He said that anyone who thought they could take his title from him should come out here… and out came TIMOTHY THATCHER! We’ve got a title match scheduled for next week.

LADY FROST vs. WILLOW NIGHTINGALE- 4/10
“Lady Frost” was billed from “somewhere cold.” Can we please not have this dumb goofy sh*t? Please?
Willow won a short match cleanly, but it was too even to be called a squash.

IAN RICCABONI INTERVIEWS WILLOW NIGHTINGALE- very bad
She noted that she has now won three matches in a row in ROH (one of each of the last two PPVs, and now one here tonight), so she thinks she has earned a shot at Athena’s ROH Women’s World Championship. She said this in a way that made me want to see someone come out and stomp her skull in. That’s how annoying she was.
Athena came out, but alas she did not cave Willow’s skull in, or even just rip her vocal cords out. She rejected Willow’s challenge, but then said she was giving her a title shot anyway. She kept calling her “porcelain.” I don’t get that. It’s not like porcelain is known for being fragile. Is she saying Willow is white? Is she calling her a toilet? I don’t get it.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Claudio Castagnoli(c) vs. A.R. Fox- 8.25/10
A worthy main event, with the expected power vs. speed story. Claudio won cleanly to retain.


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Eddie Kingston came out. He says that he is an “independent contractor now.” He also says that he promised Moxley that he wouldn’t beat Claudio up in AEW. Is there supposed to be some kind of heat between these two? Kingston can’t possibly still be upset that Moxley got the submission victory for their team in Blood & Guts before Kingston could make Jericho tap out, can he?
Kingston went to hand the microphone to Claudio, but Claudio left and Kingston dropped it. I think Claudio is supposed to be the heel here for turning down Eddie’s challenge, but Kingston came off like a jerk. The fans were all behind Kingston.


Okay. So… overall thoughts:
It was good that they got the champions on the show (an appearance by Joe- even if just in the form of a promo during a video package- would have been nice). I thought the main event was certainly worthy, and that YUTA vs. Thatcher was a great hook for next week.
That being said there were some big negatives as well. The first was that the show didn’t feel big or important at all, which was only compounded by people constantly insisting to us that it was. Bigger names would have helped (I’m not even talking about Dragon or Moxley or FTR or MJF; just guys like Matt Sydal or Bandido or even Colt Cabana, who have some name value), as would have having a stronger match in the opener spot. A real tone-setter.
This was amplified by the fact that so many of the people they did use are people who have become damaged goods in AEW. If you want a show to feel important don’t put Mark Sterling and his crew all over it. Skye Blue has been a proven loser. If she was really the only person in this situation, you could tell a story with her as the reclamation project, but it’s her, Madison Rayne, Daivari, Slim J, Woods, etc. The presence of people who feel like proven losers in ROH (LSG, Joe Keys, etc.) didn’t help, either. Yes, those ROH guys were just there as jobbers, but there is still a lack of freshness to them (and LSG especially).
That lack of freshness is a larger point as well. It’s not just the “damaged goods” guys, but it’s people like Rhett Titus and Tracy Williams doing the same go-nowhere angle we have been seeing in ROH for years now. That combines with people who are doing exactly the same thing they were doing on AEW TV (which makes sense that they’re doing it, but that just means you shouldn’t be using them here) to make the product feel like it’s somewhere between AEW Dark and a continuation of the stale ROH we’ve seen since Delirious got lazy in 2017. You couldn’t find any new interviewers out there instead of using the AEW interviewer? Or you couldn’t pull out Dave Prazak or Sean Price or Becky Bayless or anyone with ROH pedigree (I like Quinn McKay when she’s not being given annoying closing comments to make the interview about herself, but I would have stayed away from her as an interviewer because that would feel like it’s a continuation of the dull ROH).

In conclusion, this certainly wasn’t a bad show. In fact, in a vacuum, I think it’s fair to call it very good or even great. But as the first episode of a relaunched promotion, it was not inspiring in any way. Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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