ROH Conquest Tour: Philadelphia
ROH Conquest Tour: Philadelphia (3/12/2016)- Philadelphia, PA
DALTON CASTLE PROMO- he complains that Kenny Omega is â€"ducking†him. This came off as heelish to me. We all know the reason that Omega couldn’t make it to the show and we know it wasn’t Omega’s fault. Castle coming out here and claiming that Omega is ducking him is Heel Promo 101.
Dalton then tells us that this is the debut segment of his new talkshow and he announces in Oprah-esque fashion that everyone is getting a puppy. I was absolutely hating this stupidity (and Mr. Wrestling III marking out in the most obnoxious way possible was not helping), so I was quite happy when the All Night Express came out to interrupt him.
Dalton was very upset that ANX prevented him from giving all of the fans puppies, but I don’t understand why ANX’s presence prevents that. If Dalton has the puppies, why can’t he just give them out later, like during intermission? (By the way, what I imagine happed is that Dalton and the boys spent all morning calling every pet store in Philly and the surrounding suburbs and said â€"Hello. I’d like to order all of your puppies. Yes, ALL of them.†Then they rented some trucks and spent the whole afternoon driving around and picking up all of the puppies, then drove the trucks to the show, leaving all of the other wrestlers mystified as to what was in these three giant trucks that was making so much noise.
Verbal jabs were exchanged, including Dalton calling ANX pussies. This all resulted in a…
HANDICAP MATCH: All Night Express vs. Dalton Castle & The Boys- 5.75/10
So we’ve got a handicap match with the babyfaces having the advantage? That’s backwards. And before anyone says â€"Oh, they’re just the Boys. Dalton is really the one at the disadvantage here,†let me remind you that it took Silas Young and Beer City Bruiser more time to defeat The Boys (over ten minutes) than it took Tomohiro Ishii to beat Roderick Strong and Bobby Fish. Now Dalton is distracting the ref to rob ANX of a legitimate victory. This is so backwards.
They do a lot of spots with the Boys going flying. Rhett has a new finisher. ANX beat the Boys up after the match but Castle makes the save and even hits Kenny King with the Bangarang because why would we want the heel to escape with his heat?
ADAM PAGE & JONATHAN GRESHAM vs. BJ WHITMER & CEDRIC ALEXANDER (w/Veda Scott)- 6.75/10
It must be Backwards Night or something tonight because after the previous match, we now have a match that starts with babyface Jonathan Gresham jumping Cedric Alexander from behind. If you can get past that, this got pretty great. They started off with a really intense brawl on the outside that ended when Whitmer gave Page a Back Suplex, dropping his back on the edge of the barricade. The heels then got Gresham into the ring and used their two-on-one advantage to get heat on him until Page recovered and Gresham finally managed to make a hot tag.
The babyfaces made their comeback, cool moves were done, etc. etc. until we got the one other thing in this match that I really didn’t like: Whitmer went and grabbed a chair, so Mr. Wrestling III slid his chair into the ring for Adam Page to use. Page and Whitmer stared each other down, then started to swing chairs at each other. Technically they didn’t hit each other- only the chair the other one was holding- but to have this all happen right in front of the referee and not be a double DQ looked ridiculous.
Page pinned Cedric while staring a whole through BJ. I thought it would have been better to have Gresham pin Cedric again to drive home the angle that Gresham has Cedric’s number (maybe you could have Page and Whitmer brawl to the back to get over their hatred of each other).
THE BRISCOES & CHEESEBURGER vs. WAR MACHINE & MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 7.5/10
Matt Taven showed up on commentary to give out very vague TV spoilers and also be entertaining.
I get that they are trying to show team unity, but War Machine coming out in football pads looked idiotic. They looked like overgrown children trying to play Road Warriors. The match was really fun and full of hard-hitting stuff. That Briscoes-War Machine face-off was definitely meant as a tease of things to come.
IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: KUSHIDA(c) vs. ACH- 8.5/10
ACH works the head, KUSHIDA works the arm, they do some cool counters and have a fantastic match.
WILL FERRARA vs. JOEY DIESEL DADDIEGO (w/Taeler Hendrix)- 4.25/10
Ferrara’s got new music and some new entrance gear that looks terrible (like a thin hoodie that he cut most of the material off of. Before the match, Taeler cut a decent promo on Donovan Dijak.
These two actually had a decent little match and both actually showed some personality, but all of that ended when Daddiego just decided to get himself DQed for using a chair. Donovan Dijak (accompanied by Prince Nana, and with some new music that includes a little intro bit by Nana) came out to make the save. Their brawl was quickly broken up by refs and security. Taeler pulled Daddiego out of the ring to safety, so Dijak beat up the security guys who had prevented him from beating up Daddiego.
ADAM COLE & RODERICK STRONG vs. reDRagon- 7.75/10
I was actually expecting more from these guys, as this was the match I was looking forward to the most. The match was still really great and all: I was just expecting more.
MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS vs. YOUNG BUCKS vs. THE ADDICTION- 8.5/10
All of the sh*t the Bucks did with that broom was idiotic. There was not reason that they shouldn’t have been DQed for throwing it at Kaz (and it did actually hit him), and there was no reason the ref should have let them keep it at ringside afterwards. Kaz’s comical selling the broom also shouldn’t have happened. The stupid sack-grabbing spot also should have been a DQ… and the common thread in all of these dumb comedy spots is that involve the Young Bucks. This was made even more infuriating simply because the Bucks seem to be inserted into what really should be a grudge match between MCMG and The Addiction for no other reason than to make it a big giant spotfest.
That being said, the good greatly out-weighed the bad here. Seeing MCMG in action together again was great, and the finish is one of those things that makes you bump up a rating all on its own. That finish? The Best Meltzer-Driver Ever.
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Taeler Hendrix) vs. Matt Sydal- 7.75/10
Almost an 8, but not quite. I was hoping for more from these two. This is the first time I have really felt like Lethal didn’t deliver as champion when he was given ample time. It felt like Sydal didn’t get much of a comeback, and it would have been nice to see them do more with Lethal working over Sydal’s back.
An awesome show from ROH, and that is even taking into consideration the fact that two of the top matches didn’t deliver to the level I expected them to. Definitely recommended.
DALTON CASTLE PROMO- he complains that Kenny Omega is â€"ducking†him. This came off as heelish to me. We all know the reason that Omega couldn’t make it to the show and we know it wasn’t Omega’s fault. Castle coming out here and claiming that Omega is ducking him is Heel Promo 101.
Dalton then tells us that this is the debut segment of his new talkshow and he announces in Oprah-esque fashion that everyone is getting a puppy. I was absolutely hating this stupidity (and Mr. Wrestling III marking out in the most obnoxious way possible was not helping), so I was quite happy when the All Night Express came out to interrupt him.
Dalton was very upset that ANX prevented him from giving all of the fans puppies, but I don’t understand why ANX’s presence prevents that. If Dalton has the puppies, why can’t he just give them out later, like during intermission? (By the way, what I imagine happed is that Dalton and the boys spent all morning calling every pet store in Philly and the surrounding suburbs and said â€"Hello. I’d like to order all of your puppies. Yes, ALL of them.†Then they rented some trucks and spent the whole afternoon driving around and picking up all of the puppies, then drove the trucks to the show, leaving all of the other wrestlers mystified as to what was in these three giant trucks that was making so much noise.
Verbal jabs were exchanged, including Dalton calling ANX pussies. This all resulted in a…
HANDICAP MATCH: All Night Express vs. Dalton Castle & The Boys- 5.75/10
So we’ve got a handicap match with the babyfaces having the advantage? That’s backwards. And before anyone says â€"Oh, they’re just the Boys. Dalton is really the one at the disadvantage here,†let me remind you that it took Silas Young and Beer City Bruiser more time to defeat The Boys (over ten minutes) than it took Tomohiro Ishii to beat Roderick Strong and Bobby Fish. Now Dalton is distracting the ref to rob ANX of a legitimate victory. This is so backwards.
They do a lot of spots with the Boys going flying. Rhett has a new finisher. ANX beat the Boys up after the match but Castle makes the save and even hits Kenny King with the Bangarang because why would we want the heel to escape with his heat?
ADAM PAGE & JONATHAN GRESHAM vs. BJ WHITMER & CEDRIC ALEXANDER (w/Veda Scott)- 6.75/10
It must be Backwards Night or something tonight because after the previous match, we now have a match that starts with babyface Jonathan Gresham jumping Cedric Alexander from behind. If you can get past that, this got pretty great. They started off with a really intense brawl on the outside that ended when Whitmer gave Page a Back Suplex, dropping his back on the edge of the barricade. The heels then got Gresham into the ring and used their two-on-one advantage to get heat on him until Page recovered and Gresham finally managed to make a hot tag.
The babyfaces made their comeback, cool moves were done, etc. etc. until we got the one other thing in this match that I really didn’t like: Whitmer went and grabbed a chair, so Mr. Wrestling III slid his chair into the ring for Adam Page to use. Page and Whitmer stared each other down, then started to swing chairs at each other. Technically they didn’t hit each other- only the chair the other one was holding- but to have this all happen right in front of the referee and not be a double DQ looked ridiculous.
Page pinned Cedric while staring a whole through BJ. I thought it would have been better to have Gresham pin Cedric again to drive home the angle that Gresham has Cedric’s number (maybe you could have Page and Whitmer brawl to the back to get over their hatred of each other).
THE BRISCOES & CHEESEBURGER vs. WAR MACHINE & MOOSE (w/Stokely Hathaway)- 7.5/10
Matt Taven showed up on commentary to give out very vague TV spoilers and also be entertaining.
I get that they are trying to show team unity, but War Machine coming out in football pads looked idiotic. They looked like overgrown children trying to play Road Warriors. The match was really fun and full of hard-hitting stuff. That Briscoes-War Machine face-off was definitely meant as a tease of things to come.
IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: KUSHIDA(c) vs. ACH- 8.5/10
ACH works the head, KUSHIDA works the arm, they do some cool counters and have a fantastic match.
WILL FERRARA vs. JOEY DIESEL DADDIEGO (w/Taeler Hendrix)- 4.25/10
Ferrara’s got new music and some new entrance gear that looks terrible (like a thin hoodie that he cut most of the material off of. Before the match, Taeler cut a decent promo on Donovan Dijak.
These two actually had a decent little match and both actually showed some personality, but all of that ended when Daddiego just decided to get himself DQed for using a chair. Donovan Dijak (accompanied by Prince Nana, and with some new music that includes a little intro bit by Nana) came out to make the save. Their brawl was quickly broken up by refs and security. Taeler pulled Daddiego out of the ring to safety, so Dijak beat up the security guys who had prevented him from beating up Daddiego.
ADAM COLE & RODERICK STRONG vs. reDRagon- 7.75/10
I was actually expecting more from these guys, as this was the match I was looking forward to the most. The match was still really great and all: I was just expecting more.
MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS vs. YOUNG BUCKS vs. THE ADDICTION- 8.5/10
All of the sh*t the Bucks did with that broom was idiotic. There was not reason that they shouldn’t have been DQed for throwing it at Kaz (and it did actually hit him), and there was no reason the ref should have let them keep it at ringside afterwards. Kaz’s comical selling the broom also shouldn’t have happened. The stupid sack-grabbing spot also should have been a DQ… and the common thread in all of these dumb comedy spots is that involve the Young Bucks. This was made even more infuriating simply because the Bucks seem to be inserted into what really should be a grudge match between MCMG and The Addiction for no other reason than to make it a big giant spotfest.
That being said, the good greatly out-weighed the bad here. Seeing MCMG in action together again was great, and the finish is one of those things that makes you bump up a rating all on its own. That finish? The Best Meltzer-Driver Ever.
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jay Lethal(c) (w/Taeler Hendrix) vs. Matt Sydal- 7.75/10
Almost an 8, but not quite. I was hoping for more from these two. This is the first time I have really felt like Lethal didn’t deliver as champion when he was given ample time. It felt like Sydal didn’t get much of a comeback, and it would have been nice to see them do more with Lethal working over Sydal’s back.
An awesome show from ROH, and that is even taking into consideration the fact that two of the top matches didn’t deliver to the level I expected them to. Definitely recommended.