ROH Road to Best in the World 2015: Night 2 Results (OKC)

[Big Red Machine]

Source: http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top- ... ahoma-city

- Lots of cheers while Kevin Kelly announced the DA time slot.

- 2 big guys squashed a masked wrestler and partner. Must have been locals, but I didn't catch the names over the PA.

- Caprice Coleman vs guy I didn't know with a "dirty" gimmick. Sorry, the PA was horrible and I didn't get his name. Pretty much a CC squash match.

- Winner gets a TV title shot later on: Matt Taven vs Ray Rowe vs Mark Briscoe: Briscoe pinned Taven after fisherman buster. Mark was the first guy to get a superstar reaction

- Romantic Touch vs Silas Young: Young won. Lots of funny stuff from Romantic.

- BJ Whitmer vs Michael Bennett vs Hansen: Hansen pinned Whitmer. I think a lot of people expected Bennett to win, so they popped for the finish. Hansen was very popular with this crowd.

- Roderick Strong vs Will Ferarra: Roddy super over with the people. He's just so crisp, he seemed to be on a different level from anyone so far. Roddy with a superplex.

- Michael Elgin vs Dalton Castle: Elgin won with the Baldo bomb. Crowd was behind Dalton, and loved his act. Chanted "suplex city" when Dalton won a battle of German suplexes.

- Adam Cole vs ACH: Great match. Crowd was really into both guys. Big moves from ACH but Cole won when ACH missed a big spot. Adam Cole had the presence of a champion.

- TV Champion Jay Lethal vs Mark Briscoe: Lethal won with his finisher after hitting Mark with the book. Crowd was behind Mark but no one believed he had a chance. Lethal came off as the only true heel on the show.

- ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe vs Hansen: Crowd wasn't super into it early. It was good brawling, but they just didn't buy Hansen as a title threat. Midway, Lethal came out, with Truth, then Mark and Rowe came out to make sure he didn't interfere. Match then picked up steam. Crowd was way into it when Rowe kicked out after a Jay Driller. Jay won with two Jay drillers.

After the match, Lethal jumped in the ring, talked smack to Jay and tried to leave, but War Machine and Briscoes beat him up, threw him out, and then grabbed Truth, who escaped. Curtain call from Briscoes and War Machine. Crowd chanted ROH to end the show. Crowd really was into it in the second half.

- Briscoes, Cole, and ACH were the clear stars of the show to the fans. Lethal was really effective as the villain of the whole show.

[Big Red Machine]

I hate the booking here by Delirious. He doesn’t let the small things build, and as a result, they always feel like filler. Earlier in the week, they put out an article on the website hyping up last night’s 4-way (Mark Briscoe vs. Willi Ferrara vs. Silas Young vs. Jay Lethal), the main thrust of which was that Mark Briscoe could be in line for a shot at the TV Title. Then they had Mark win that match. Great! Then, on this show, they throw it all away by having Mark earn a TV Title shot a different way (via the random “winner gets a title shot later tonight 3-way”) which forces them to give Mark his title shot tonight. The point of last night’s match (combined with the article) were to show that Mark deserves a TV Title match. Why have him earn this shot a second time when you could actually give this shot to someone else?

Here’s what I would have done:
First you do what they did and put Mark over in the four-way, pinning someone who isn’t Lethal, but I’d be sure to include a big nearfall where Mark clearly has Lethal pinned after laying him out with a finisher and the only reason this doesn’t end the match is that someone break up the pin.
Then, in OKC, I’d have ROWE win the TV Title shot- preferably pinning Taven, but if New Japan won’t let Taven lose, then pinning Mark after some sort of interference by Lethal to prevent Mark from winning.

When the TV Title is about to come out as the semi-main event, I’d have Jay Lethal demand that it be the main event instead because he is sick and tired of his TV Title playing second fiddle to Jay Brisoces World Title. Jay comes out and has no problem with this because he’ll fight anyone, anytime. Jay successfully defends his title, but gets laid out by Lethal on his way to the back. Rowe then comes out and challenges Lethal (unsuccessfully) for the TV Title, but we give him a few good nearfalls because he’s a (relatively) local guy in the main event in a new market.

I’d give Mark his TV Title shot at next weekend’s show in Collinsville, with Lethal retain. Maybe he cheats, maybe he wins clean, but the important part is that he beats Mark bloody after the match. Jay Briscoe comes out to make the save, and Lethal bails, but rather than pursue Lethal, Jay stays to help tend to his injured brother.
Also in Collinsville, I’d bring back the Double Stakes match that they did in 2005 where the winner of the first fall would get a World Title shot the next night and the winner of the second fall would get a TV Title shot the next night (although for added fun, I’d make it a six man scramble instead of a four corner survival).
The next night in Nashville, we open the show by having Jay Briscoe announce that due to the injuries Mark suffered last night at the hands of Jay Lethal, Mark won’t be able to compete in his scheduled match tonight. Jay Briscoe wants to fight Jay Lethal, right here, right now. He doesn’t care about belts being on the line because right now he just wants to avenge his brother and kick Lethal’s ass. Lethal comes out and they have a brawl that security breaks up.
I’d contrive some reason to have the ROH World Title match go on right before intermission- maybe the guy getting the title shot is someone who has never had one before (Matt Jackson would be a cool choice assuming his wife has already given birth and he is willing to work the double-shot) or maybe someone who hasn’t had one in a very long time, like Matt Sydal- and he doesn’t want to wait any longer. Jay has no problem defending his belt at any point in the show, so he is down for having the match now. They go for a few minutes before Jay Lethal interferes, attacking Briscoe and causing a DQ. The other babyface tries to help, but he also gets laid out, but this buys Briscoe enough time to recover, and they have a big brawl which is broken up by the locker room and they are brought to the back.
The second half starts with Nigel coming out and announcing that due to the reshuffling of the match order, our new main event will be the TV Title match, and because ROH does not want that match to end in the same disappointing DQ that the world title did- and because ROH doesn’t want Lethal and Briscoe to fight each other and possibly get hurt before their big match and also not ruin any other matches with their brawling, that if either one of them touches the other for the rest of tonight’s show, that person will be stripped of his title and will be out of the main event of Best in the World 2015!
Lethal wins the main event clean (I think his challenger would be a heel, just so we haven’t killed off a babyface challenger before Lethal’s title reign even starts), and Nigel McGuinness gives the standard. “Thanks for coming, but the show is now over, please drive home safely” speech… but as soon as he is done with it, Jay Briscoe comes charging out and he and Lethal have a huge brawl, beating the crap out of any security that gets in their way, until the locker room once again spills out to break it up. We get some false stops in there (think Joe vs. Morishima from Glory By Honor V: Night 2) and we head out of Best in the World with both Mark Briscoe and the babyface who got screwed out of his title match tonight (as well as Kyle O’Reilly from the Hopkins show and Jay Briscoe needing his contractually obligated rematch) already established as challengers for new ROH World Champion Jay Lethal, and we have also managed to tell an over-arching story of the course of these four “Road to Best in the World 2015” shows that also builds up the main event of Best in the World 2015

[cero2k]

only thing i would do differently would be that instead of Lethal leaving a Mark in a pool of blood, I would have him win the match cleanly and just out-wrestle him, then have Lethal start calling out Briscoe saying that he beat decisively the man that is most like him and that he has his number

[Big Red Machine]

only thing i would do differently would be that instead of Lethal leaving a Mark in a pool of blood, I would have him win the match cleanly and just out-wrestle him, then have Lethal start calling out Briscoe saying that he beat decisively the man that is most like him and that he has his number

That's not bad either. I happen to like the blood feud/big angle going into a PPV main event when there are Briscoes involved, but your idea works well for a belt vs. belt match.