BRM Reviews the 1/31/2016 ROH

[Big Red Machine]

RELAXED RULES MATCH FOR THE ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Roderick Strong(c) vs. MASADA- 5/10
This is a Relaxed Rules match because… um… MASADA. If you think the guy needs to use weapons in order to reach the quality of match expected of an ROH talent, that’s a sign he doesn’t belong in ROH in the first place.

The wrestling here was fine and the match was going fine until, for no good reason, MASADA pulled his bamboo stabbing sticks out of his pocket and tried to stab Roddy in the head with a handful of them. This was stupid.
History lesson time: Relaxed Rules matches were created for feuds like Homicide vs. Corino or the Second City Saints vs. the Prophecy where they hated each other and things would definitely get heated but we REALLY wanted a clear winner and loser, so if they use a chairshot or two, we’ll look the other way. What they are NOT is license to bring a weapon to the ring for the specific purpose of stabbing someone in the head!
And for added silliness, this stabbing attempt came out of nowhere, no one successfully hit the other with any weapons, and then they went right to the finish… so what was even the point? Why make it a weapons match for the sake of one spot in which no one actually succeeds in hitting anyone else with a weapon?

BOBBY FISH CONFRONTS RODERICK STRONG- this was pretty good, although Fish was a bit annoying.

TOP PROSPECT TOURNAMENT FIRST-ROUND MATCH: Punisher Martinez vs. Colby Corino (w/BJ Whitmer)- 4/10
Great for the time it got. I was SOOOO into Colby’s comeback and Colby sells very well, too. Martinez looked fine. The main thing he has going for him is his size (6’6, 250lbs).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- GREAT!
To make a long story short, Whitmer beats Colby up in order to try to get Corino to admit to being Mr. Wrestling III (they set this whole thing up well with a great promo from Whitmer). Mr. Wrestling III just stayed there at commentary, even after Whitmer dumped Colby’s limp body right in front of him.
Referees attended to Colby as Whitmer left the ring, but before he went to the back, Whitmer went over to Mr. Wrestling III and said that Steve’s inaction right here has proved everything BJ has said about him to be true. What Steve did right here was sacrificing the well-being of his son for the sake of his own career.

reDRagon vs. ADAM COLE & JAY LETHAL (w/the House of Truth)- 7/10
A great match except that they got the finish backwards! The finish was Lethal accidentally hitting Cole with the Lethal Injection (he thought he was hitting O’Reilly, but Fish threw Cole in the way) then reDRagon hit Cole with Chasing the Dragon and Kyle pinned Cole.
There was absolutely no reason for Kyle to get any sort of revenge on Cole this early in the feud (I know the turn happened in September, but right after that Kyle missed a whole bunch of shows working for New Japan, so things only really started a scant two months ago in November), and especially not in a random TV match, and even more so not when Cole is heading into a world title match.
The right finish would have been to have Cole accidentally Superkick Lethal, setting up for Chasing the Dragon and then Kyle pinning Lethal. I know that you want to protect your world champion, but he’d be getting hit by a finisher from his own teammate, followed by a double-team finisher and being pinned by one of his two challengers at the next PPV. If you protect your champion well (and ROH has definitely done so with Lethal) it is okay to have him get pinned every so often to set up a title match. Plus… who else were you going to beat here? One of the #1 contenders to the world title? Or the guy who should be challenging for the TV Title?

A fine show from ROH, but the show seems to be declining in quality in 2016.

[cero2k]

reDRagon vs. ADAM COLE & JAY LETHAL (w/the House of Truth)- 7/10
A great match except that they got the finish backwards! The finish was Lethal accidentally hitting Cole with the Lethal Injection (he thought he was hitting O’Reilly, but Fish threw Cole in the way) then reDRagon hit Cole with Chasing the Dragon and Kyle pinned Cole.
There was absolutely no reason for Kyle to get any sort of revenge on Cole this early in the feud (I know the turn happened in September, but right after that Kyle missed a whole bunch of shows working for New Japan, so things only really started a scant two months ago in November), and especially not in a random TV match, and even more so not when Cole is heading into a world title match.
The right finish would have been to have Cole accidentally Superkick Lethal, setting up for Chasing the Dragon and then Kyle pinning Lethal. I know that you want to protect your world champion, but he’d be getting hit by a finisher from his own teammate, followed by a double-team finisher and being pinned by one of his two challengers at the next PPV. If you protect your champion well (and ROH has definitely done so with Lethal) it is okay to have him get pinned every so often to set up a title match. Plus… who else were you going to beat here? One of the #1 contenders to the world title? Or the guy who should be challenging for the TV Title?

i liked the finish the most. They told the typical story that Lethal can lose his title even if he's not in the decision. In a match were everything was 'ok' for Lethal, he lost because one of the others was 'weak', and Lethal's reaction was perfect. So i like that even though Lethal knows he has both these guys' numbers, he just had a slap-in-the-face example that he'll need to also pull double duty and make sure these guys don't get pinned.

[Big Red Machine]

reDRagon vs. ADAM COLE & JAY LETHAL (w/the House of Truth)- 7/10
A great match except that they got the finish backwards! The finish was Lethal accidentally hitting Cole with the Lethal Injection (he thought he was hitting O’Reilly, but Fish threw Cole in the way) then reDRagon hit Cole with Chasing the Dragon and Kyle pinned Cole.
There was absolutely no reason for Kyle to get any sort of revenge on Cole this early in the feud (I know the turn happened in September, but right after that Kyle missed a whole bunch of shows working for New Japan, so things only really started a scant two months ago in November), and especially not in a random TV match, and even more so not when Cole is heading into a world title match.
The right finish would have been to have Cole accidentally Superkick Lethal, setting up for Chasing the Dragon and then Kyle pinning Lethal. I know that you want to protect your world champion, but he’d be getting hit by a finisher from his own teammate, followed by a double-team finisher and being pinned by one of his two challengers at the next PPV. If you protect your champion well (and ROH has definitely done so with Lethal) it is okay to have him get pinned every so often to set up a title match. Plus… who else were you going to beat here? One of the #1 contenders to the world title? Or the guy who should be challenging for the TV Title?

i liked the finish the most. They told the typical story that Lethal can lose his title even if he's not in the decision. In a match were everything was 'ok' for Lethal, he lost because one of the others was 'weak', and Lethal's reaction was perfect. So i like that even though Lethal knows he has both these guys' numbers, he just had a slap-in-the-face example that he'll need to also pull double duty and make sure these guys don't get pinned.

I never liked that story, simply because it's something we all already know. You don't need to have a match to show us how the rules of a different match work if we've all seen that different match a million times.