BRM Reviews the 3/12/2016 ROH (Tag Team Gauntlet)
Posted: Mar 16th, '16, 10:32
TAG TEAM GAUNTLET FOR A FUTURE SHOT AT THE ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: reDRagon vs. Caprice Coleman & Will Ferrara vs. The House of Truth (Joey Diesel Daddiego & Chris LaRusso) (w/Truth Martini) vs. The Young Bucks vs. “Brutal” Bob Evans & Tim Hughes vs. The Addiction vs. Roppongi Vice- 7.5/10
A match that was perfectly acceptable for a show-long gauntlet match, but nothing you need to go out of your way to see. It did leave me with a lot to say, though:
1. I can see some people being unhappy at the high percentage of teams that had absolutely no chance of winning, but in this case, I was fine with it. This is a big gauntlet match for a title shot, so having more teams in the match makes it feel bigger and makes it feel like the winner deserves a title shot simply for winning this one match. It's the same logic for allowing the Zack Ryders of the world into the Royal Rumble.
2. That being said, the fact that we are including teams like Coleman & Ferrara and Brutal Bob & Tim Hughes makes the omission of the bigger-name teams like the Briscoes seem like a mistake. I realize that they both wrestled elsewhere on these tapings, but so did Daniels. Instead of giving too much time to Hughes & Evans vs. Bucks (more on that in a moment) and spending the last five minutes of the show on a replay of the end of a six man from last August involving New Japan guys, why not have the Briscoes come in and get screwed out of a win by cheating heels (thus still protecting them from the match with Elgin and Tanahashi), which could lead to a match down the line, and if you do it close enough to the end, it can justify the Briscoes presence in the #1 contendership match at Supercard of Honor X: Night 2.
3. I hated the overbooking in the reDRagon vs. HOT finish. How does it make sense that Truth Martini comes out and says that he has always wanted to manage the tag champs, but then he and Daddiego walk out after just one miscommunication with LaRusso? Why not have reDRagon just get the win straight up (with Fish making LaRusso tap) and then have Daddiego and Truth beat him up after the match (and then you could let reDRagon look like big babyfaces by making the save for him)?
4. What the Bucks did tonight is what I’d like to see out of them a lot more often: athleticism and reversals instead of just superkicks and flippy-moves hitting people and people kicking out.
5. I was fine with the comic interlude with Hughes and Brutal Bob facing the Bucks… until the moment Hughes opened his mouth and did his excruciatingly annoying spot where he picks a guy up for a sidewalk slam and just starts screaming for no reason, at which point I completely soured on that portion of the match and just wanted Hughes to be off my screen as quickly as possible. This was made even more frustrating by the fact that, for the purposes of the comedic story they seemed to be trying to tell (Hughes and Evans would attempt to outsmart the Bucks and it would always have disastrous results) it was not necessary (and, in fact, counterproductive) for Hughes to get in any offense at all.
6. Shouldn’t Addiction brawling with RPG Vice after Addiction were eliminated and RPG Vice had come out for the match have constituted a DQ?
7. Perhaps more importantly… WHY were Addiction brawling with RPG Vice in the first place? What beef is there between these two teams? Obviously Addiction beat up the Bucks because they were angry that they got beaten, but why are RPG Vice rushing out to save the Bucks?
Also, Kevin Kelly on commentary mentioned that the Addiction still feel like they were cheated out of the tag belts because they never got pinned for them. I thought this story ended MONTHS ago when they lost to Kingdom on TV in Kalamazoo. Is it just me, or are there a lot of these nebulous, abstract Delirious angles that feel like they don’t really ever end (it’s also possible that this is Kevin’s fault for bringing up something he shouldn’t, but if he did, that is something that should have been recorded over in post-production).
A match that was perfectly acceptable for a show-long gauntlet match, but nothing you need to go out of your way to see. It did leave me with a lot to say, though:
1. I can see some people being unhappy at the high percentage of teams that had absolutely no chance of winning, but in this case, I was fine with it. This is a big gauntlet match for a title shot, so having more teams in the match makes it feel bigger and makes it feel like the winner deserves a title shot simply for winning this one match. It's the same logic for allowing the Zack Ryders of the world into the Royal Rumble.
2. That being said, the fact that we are including teams like Coleman & Ferrara and Brutal Bob & Tim Hughes makes the omission of the bigger-name teams like the Briscoes seem like a mistake. I realize that they both wrestled elsewhere on these tapings, but so did Daniels. Instead of giving too much time to Hughes & Evans vs. Bucks (more on that in a moment) and spending the last five minutes of the show on a replay of the end of a six man from last August involving New Japan guys, why not have the Briscoes come in and get screwed out of a win by cheating heels (thus still protecting them from the match with Elgin and Tanahashi), which could lead to a match down the line, and if you do it close enough to the end, it can justify the Briscoes presence in the #1 contendership match at Supercard of Honor X: Night 2.
3. I hated the overbooking in the reDRagon vs. HOT finish. How does it make sense that Truth Martini comes out and says that he has always wanted to manage the tag champs, but then he and Daddiego walk out after just one miscommunication with LaRusso? Why not have reDRagon just get the win straight up (with Fish making LaRusso tap) and then have Daddiego and Truth beat him up after the match (and then you could let reDRagon look like big babyfaces by making the save for him)?
4. What the Bucks did tonight is what I’d like to see out of them a lot more often: athleticism and reversals instead of just superkicks and flippy-moves hitting people and people kicking out.
5. I was fine with the comic interlude with Hughes and Brutal Bob facing the Bucks… until the moment Hughes opened his mouth and did his excruciatingly annoying spot where he picks a guy up for a sidewalk slam and just starts screaming for no reason, at which point I completely soured on that portion of the match and just wanted Hughes to be off my screen as quickly as possible. This was made even more frustrating by the fact that, for the purposes of the comedic story they seemed to be trying to tell (Hughes and Evans would attempt to outsmart the Bucks and it would always have disastrous results) it was not necessary (and, in fact, counterproductive) for Hughes to get in any offense at all.
6. Shouldn’t Addiction brawling with RPG Vice after Addiction were eliminated and RPG Vice had come out for the match have constituted a DQ?
7. Perhaps more importantly… WHY were Addiction brawling with RPG Vice in the first place? What beef is there between these two teams? Obviously Addiction beat up the Bucks because they were angry that they got beaten, but why are RPG Vice rushing out to save the Bucks?
Also, Kevin Kelly on commentary mentioned that the Addiction still feel like they were cheated out of the tag belts because they never got pinned for them. I thought this story ended MONTHS ago when they lost to Kingdom on TV in Kalamazoo. Is it just me, or are there a lot of these nebulous, abstract Delirious angles that feel like they don’t really ever end (it’s also possible that this is Kevin’s fault for bringing up something he shouldn’t, but if he did, that is something that should have been recorded over in post-production).