ROH 11th Anniversary Show
ROH 11th Anniversary Show (3/2/2013)- Chicago, IL
I highly advise that you actually see this show first. I was a great show and a lot of major, unexpected stuff happens. It is always best to experience these sort of things without foreknowledge of the results first, and I think that applies to this show even more than it does to other shows.
SIX MAN MAYHEM MATCH: Tadarius Thomas vs. Adam Page vs. ACH vs. Mike Sydal vs. Silas Young vs. Q.T. Marshall (w/R.D. Evans)- 6/10
Standard Six Man Mayhem match; in other words, a fun spotfest with a little bit of storytelling woven into it. These guys looked a lot better here than they did in the Top Prospect Tournament, especially Page. Hopefully ACH picking up the win is a sign of good things to come for him in ROH.
CAPRICE COLEMAN & CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. JIMMY JACOBS & STEVE CORINO- 5.5/10
Good showing from everyone. I would have preferred if Jacobs and Corino cheated in a more obvious way to get the win. Even the babyface announcer Kevin Kelly had to admit that he wasn’t sure if Corino used a foreign object or not.
NO HOLD BARRED MATCH: Charlie Haas vs. BJ Whitmer- 7/10
Lots of good hardcore stuff here. They used ladders, chairs, tables, baking sheets (which were apparently under the ring for some reason)… anything they could find, and it really made you feel the hate. At one point the ROH Dojo student who Haas has been bullying, affectionately known as â€"Cheeseburger†made an appearance during this match, a la Alex â€"Sugarfoot†Payne’s involvement in the ROH World Title match at Rising Above 2008.
THE AMERICAN WOLVES vs. FOREVER HOOLIGANS (Alex Koslov & Rocky Romero)- 7.5/10
Good stuff from both teams, but I never really felt that Forever Hooligans were in the Wolves’ league.
2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH: Roderick Strong vs. Michael Elgin- 6.5/10
Losing the first fall in less than two minutes made Roddy look weak, and Elgin didn’t really work Roddy’s neck and arm over enough to get a tap out. I was extremely disappointed with this match. I was expecting a major blow-off and this was certainly not that. This just felt like any other random match on the card. I don’t have numbers in front of me, but I’m pretty sure that this whole match was shorter than their one fall to a finish match at Final Battle, and this one was completely clean whereas Truth Martini played a big part in the finish of that one. Not bad, but way below my expectations.
TRUTH MARTINI PROMO- random. Something about taking your pants off.
MATT HARDY PROMO- got good heat.
*IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SUPER-ULTRA-MAJOR SPOILERS, TURN BACK NOW!*
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Adam Cole(c) vs. Matt Taven (w/Truth Martini… who himself is w/out pants)- 7/10
The main issue with this match was that, as Matt said in his promo, the match was an â€"afterthought.†Everyone knew there was no way in hell Taven was walking away with the belt when everything they have been building towards is Hardy vs. Cole WELL SH*T! Color me a nice bright shade of extremely surprised. A great showing for Taven. I guess ROH has some big plans for him.
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Briscoe Brothers(c) vs. Red Dragon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly)- 7.75/10
Great tag team action here. Mark Briscoe pulled out a whole bunch of moves I’d never seen him do before such as a Dragon Suplex, Fisherman’s Suplex, and what I can only describe as a Rolling Death Valley Driver… and a few other cool things that I don’t want to spoil.
I wasn’t totally surprised by the title change here. The Briscoes are ROH’s â€"safe choice†to put the tag belts on, and that means that they wind up with some short reigns, especially after winning the belts from a heel team at Final Battle. This title reign felt very similar to their title reign in early 2010. Hopefully this is the start of some big things for O’Reilly and Fish… and hopefully this means the Wolves will get the belts back at some point.
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Kevin Steen(c) vs. Jay Lethal- 8.5/10
They told a great story with both men just being tough as hell, and the stuff with Jacobs and Corino trying to help Steen without Steen knowing it was great. Nigel getting involved with Corino got a huge pop. Steen finishing off the match with the BRAINBUSTAAAAAHHHH was awesome… or it would have been if it hadn’t been botched (Lethal pretty much missed the turnbuckles so the impact looked very weak).
THE AFTERMATH- Rhino comes out and he and Jacobs attack Jay Lethal while Steen recovers. The Briscoes come out to make the save but they get taken out, too. Then Coleman and Alexander come out and they have some success… until Jimmy Rave jumps the guardrail and gives the heels the advantage. BJ Whitmer comes out, closely followed by his tag team partner Rhett Titus... who turns on him! Michael Elgin came out and he started to take down SCUM but Cliff Compton jumped the guardrail and threw powder in Elgin’s face. The heels take Elgin down and zip-tie him (and other babyfaces) to the ropes. The Wolves came out and got beaten down. Adam Cole came out, too, but he was quickly taken out by Matt Hardy, who has also joined SCUM.
Corino then comes out and cuts a promo saying that SCUM will murder ROH, etc, etc. The heels hold up an ROH banner and Jacobs stabs it a whole bunch of times with his spike, then the heels tear it apart. This whole segment was just phenomenal (although Rhett’s turn seems a little random, but I trust Delirious to come up with a good explanation for it). It felt like a combination of the Age of the Fall debut from man up and the end of Arena Warfare when the CZW guys took over the show. Fantastic execution here by ROH!
One little touch that I loved was that at two points during this whole thing it seemed like Steen was about to do something, but he was quickly knocked down by one of the babyfaces. He didn’t participate in the beatdown, but he certainly didn’t stop it either, and that might well be the inadvertent fault of the babyfaces.
Overall, a great show for ROH in the ring, and a certainly a HUGE direction-changing show as well. We had title changes, major upsets, surprise returns, and SCUM being expanded into a mega-stable. I fully expect the events of this show to ramifications that will be felt in ROH for a long time.
I highly advise that you actually see this show first. I was a great show and a lot of major, unexpected stuff happens. It is always best to experience these sort of things without foreknowledge of the results first, and I think that applies to this show even more than it does to other shows.
SIX MAN MAYHEM MATCH: Tadarius Thomas vs. Adam Page vs. ACH vs. Mike Sydal vs. Silas Young vs. Q.T. Marshall (w/R.D. Evans)- 6/10
Standard Six Man Mayhem match; in other words, a fun spotfest with a little bit of storytelling woven into it. These guys looked a lot better here than they did in the Top Prospect Tournament, especially Page. Hopefully ACH picking up the win is a sign of good things to come for him in ROH.
CAPRICE COLEMAN & CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. JIMMY JACOBS & STEVE CORINO- 5.5/10
Good showing from everyone. I would have preferred if Jacobs and Corino cheated in a more obvious way to get the win. Even the babyface announcer Kevin Kelly had to admit that he wasn’t sure if Corino used a foreign object or not.
NO HOLD BARRED MATCH: Charlie Haas vs. BJ Whitmer- 7/10
Lots of good hardcore stuff here. They used ladders, chairs, tables, baking sheets (which were apparently under the ring for some reason)… anything they could find, and it really made you feel the hate. At one point the ROH Dojo student who Haas has been bullying, affectionately known as â€"Cheeseburger†made an appearance during this match, a la Alex â€"Sugarfoot†Payne’s involvement in the ROH World Title match at Rising Above 2008.
THE AMERICAN WOLVES vs. FOREVER HOOLIGANS (Alex Koslov & Rocky Romero)- 7.5/10
Good stuff from both teams, but I never really felt that Forever Hooligans were in the Wolves’ league.
2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH: Roderick Strong vs. Michael Elgin- 6.5/10
Losing the first fall in less than two minutes made Roddy look weak, and Elgin didn’t really work Roddy’s neck and arm over enough to get a tap out. I was extremely disappointed with this match. I was expecting a major blow-off and this was certainly not that. This just felt like any other random match on the card. I don’t have numbers in front of me, but I’m pretty sure that this whole match was shorter than their one fall to a finish match at Final Battle, and this one was completely clean whereas Truth Martini played a big part in the finish of that one. Not bad, but way below my expectations.
TRUTH MARTINI PROMO- random. Something about taking your pants off.
MATT HARDY PROMO- got good heat.
*IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SUPER-ULTRA-MAJOR SPOILERS, TURN BACK NOW!*
ROH TV TITLE MATCH: Adam Cole(c) vs. Matt Taven (w/Truth Martini… who himself is w/out pants)- 7/10
The main issue with this match was that, as Matt said in his promo, the match was an â€"afterthought.†Everyone knew there was no way in hell Taven was walking away with the belt when everything they have been building towards is Hardy vs. Cole WELL SH*T! Color me a nice bright shade of extremely surprised. A great showing for Taven. I guess ROH has some big plans for him.
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Briscoe Brothers(c) vs. Red Dragon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly)- 7.75/10
Great tag team action here. Mark Briscoe pulled out a whole bunch of moves I’d never seen him do before such as a Dragon Suplex, Fisherman’s Suplex, and what I can only describe as a Rolling Death Valley Driver… and a few other cool things that I don’t want to spoil.
I wasn’t totally surprised by the title change here. The Briscoes are ROH’s â€"safe choice†to put the tag belts on, and that means that they wind up with some short reigns, especially after winning the belts from a heel team at Final Battle. This title reign felt very similar to their title reign in early 2010. Hopefully this is the start of some big things for O’Reilly and Fish… and hopefully this means the Wolves will get the belts back at some point.
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Kevin Steen(c) vs. Jay Lethal- 8.5/10
They told a great story with both men just being tough as hell, and the stuff with Jacobs and Corino trying to help Steen without Steen knowing it was great. Nigel getting involved with Corino got a huge pop. Steen finishing off the match with the BRAINBUSTAAAAAHHHH was awesome… or it would have been if it hadn’t been botched (Lethal pretty much missed the turnbuckles so the impact looked very weak).
THE AFTERMATH- Rhino comes out and he and Jacobs attack Jay Lethal while Steen recovers. The Briscoes come out to make the save but they get taken out, too. Then Coleman and Alexander come out and they have some success… until Jimmy Rave jumps the guardrail and gives the heels the advantage. BJ Whitmer comes out, closely followed by his tag team partner Rhett Titus... who turns on him! Michael Elgin came out and he started to take down SCUM but Cliff Compton jumped the guardrail and threw powder in Elgin’s face. The heels take Elgin down and zip-tie him (and other babyfaces) to the ropes. The Wolves came out and got beaten down. Adam Cole came out, too, but he was quickly taken out by Matt Hardy, who has also joined SCUM.
Corino then comes out and cuts a promo saying that SCUM will murder ROH, etc, etc. The heels hold up an ROH banner and Jacobs stabs it a whole bunch of times with his spike, then the heels tear it apart. This whole segment was just phenomenal (although Rhett’s turn seems a little random, but I trust Delirious to come up with a good explanation for it). It felt like a combination of the Age of the Fall debut from man up and the end of Arena Warfare when the CZW guys took over the show. Fantastic execution here by ROH!
One little touch that I loved was that at two points during this whole thing it seemed like Steen was about to do something, but he was quickly knocked down by one of the babyfaces. He didn’t participate in the beatdown, but he certainly didn’t stop it either, and that might well be the inadvertent fault of the babyfaces.
Overall, a great show for ROH in the ring, and a certainly a HUGE direction-changing show as well. We had title changes, major upsets, surprise returns, and SCUM being expanded into a mega-stable. I fully expect the events of this show to ramifications that will be felt in ROH for a long time.