ROH Supercard of Honor VIII
ROH Supercard of Honor VIII (4/4/2014)- New Orleans, LA
CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. RODERICK STRONG (w/the Decade & Adam Page)- 6.75/10
Great for an opener, but I was expecting a lot more out of this match. Cedric has been having a great year so far, and it really felt like this was the place for another quality performance to really help elevate both Cedric himself and this feud.
After the match, Jimmy Jacobs cut a promo putting over their angle and transitioning us into…
TAG TEAM SCRAMBLE MATCH: Andrew Everett, ACH, & Tadarius Thomas vs. Jimmy Jacobs, BJ Whitmer, & Adam Page (w/Roderick Strong)- 6.75/10
The Decade wouldn’t shake hands with the young guys, so ACH went around shaking the fans’ hands. This angered Jacobs, who pulled out his spike, and threatened to stab ACH, but the ref took it away. We haven’t had a tag team scramble in ROH for a while, and this match reminded me why they were so much fun. Lots of good action here. This was the perfect match to let Page and Everett show off what they can do (and to let ACH and Tadarius do what they normally do). Jacobs and Whitmer played their parts perfectly, as usual, just being great heels… while even coming up with an innovative dive spot I have never seen before (when you see it, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about).
After the match the heels taunted the injured ACH by threatening to stab ACH’s partner, Tadarius Thomas, with Jacobs’ spike, but didn’t (also disrespecting Thomas by saying that he isn’t enough of a threat to warrant Jacobs’ signature weapon).
TRUTH MARTINI PROMO- good
MATT TAVEN vs. TRUTH MARTINI’S MYSTERY WRESTLER- No rating. Bad segment.
They bantered a bit, then Truth kicked Taven in the nuts. There was no mystery wrestler. I was hoping for something to actually happen in this feud other than Truth costing Taven matches.
SILAS YOUNG vs. R.D. EVANS (w/Veda Scott & â€"RAMONâ€)- 5.5/10
I have never heard a crowd pop so loudly for a Dusty Finish.
MICHAEL BENNETT PROMO- boring.
MARK BRISCOE PROMO- very good. If he had cut this as pre-2013 non-mentally damaged Mark Briscoe, this would have been awesome.
NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH: Mark Briscoe vs. Michael Bennett (w/Maria Kanellis)- 6.5/10
Mark dives onto Bennett to start the match. Then we got some early crowd-brawling, and I really have to complement ROH on this. Normally indy crowd brawls are poorly lit, or there are too many fans blocking the camera, or the camera can’t follow them easily (and even more often it is all three), but here the camera stayed with them the whole time. and it was well lit, and they always managed to get shots over the fans heads so you could see everything clearly. Major props to everyone involved here, from the cameramen to whoever set up the lighting to the wrestlers themselves for staying in the aisles and staircases as much as possible.
The match was short compared to what you might expect, but extremely intense and very violent. At one point Bennett set Mark up for a spear… and while waiting for Mark to get up, he started to sing Edge’s entrance theme. That made me crack up.
MATT TAVEN LOOKS FOR TRUTH MARTINI BACKSTAGE- We didn’t quite get to see what happened, but when the camera finally caught up to them, Truth was leaving the room while Taven was laid out on the floor while EMTs were attending to him. Remember what I said about something needing to actually happen in this feud other than Truth costing Taven matches? This was that.
MATT HARDY PROMO- He says that ROH had its best financial year in 2013 and claims that the reason for this is because of himself and Adam Cole. He tries to get heat with the same Jesus-related metaphors about Adam Cole that Steve Corino was using with himself and Hardy last year, says that the Briscoes are done for, and then beats up Cheeseburger. Like most of Matt’s promos in ROH, the content was mediocre, but it got heat anyway because the fans just plain don’t like Matt.
WINNER GETS AN ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE SHOT: Raymond Rowe & Hanson vs. reDRagon vs. Forever Hooligans- 7/10
Great stuff. Great action and some good storytelling, with everyone playing their roles perfectly.
2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH FOR THE ROH TV TITLE: Tommaso Ciampa(c) vs. Jay Lethal- 6.25/10
So the match was going well for a while, until they did this one spot that I hated. Ciampa hit Lethal with a bunch of German Suplexes, then went to hit him with a big lariat, but Lethal blocked it by getting his boot up in Ciampa’s face… only for Ciampa to just come right back and hit Lethal with a big lariat anyway. So what was the point of Lethal not really selling the Germans in order to block the first lariat if he is just going to get hit with another lariat right after it anyway? Normally this sort of thing would annoy me, but if it only happened once, I wouldn’t comment on it. In this match, though, it marked the beginning of the end for my enjoyment of this match.
We soon got a ref bump (or maybe the ref bump was right before this) and Truth Martini came down to ringside. He took Ciampa’s knee-brace (which Ciampa had made a big deal of taking off before the match, as if to say that now, a year and a half after the injury, his knee is finally fully healed) and slid it to Lethal. For someone else, this would have been fine, but while doing all of this, Truth Martini was carrying the Book of Truth around with him, which looks like it would hurt a hell of a lot more than Ciampa’s dinky little knee-brace. Furthermore, all of this occurred RIGHT IN FRONT OF NIGEL MCGUINNESS, who was doing commentary, and Nigel, who, as ROH Matchmaker has led a campaign to â€"restore honor†to ROH, did absolutely nothing to stop it.
So Lethal hits Ciampa with the knee brace… but Ciampa kicks out. Lethal then hits Ciampa with his big diving elbow drop Randy Savage tribute finisher... and Ciampa kicks out IMMEDIATELY. He then begins a Superman comeback, getting to his feet while his whole body is shaking, clenching his fists in front of him, responding to some superkicks from Lethal by just flipping Lethal off… so Lethal dropkicks Ciampa in the knee, and apparently the knee is the off-button for Ciampa’s Superman comeback, because he sold that. Lethal then hit him with the Lethal Injection (which he had been trying unsuccessfully to hit all match), and pinned him. What the hell is the point of doing a Superman comeback if it only lasts three moves and you don’t actually ever get to the â€"comeback†part of it before getting cut off again? And why totally no-sell a finisher if you are just going to get beaten a minute later?
These are things that are supposed to be special, and in order to keep them special, they need to happen only at special times. This is (at least) the sixth time someone has kicked out of a finisher at one in ROH in the past two years. In the first ten years of ROH’s history, it happened exactly once… and pretty much everyone who knows anything about ROH’s history can tell you exactly what match it was and exactly what the spot was. Of the six times it has happened in the last two years, I only remembered two of them off the top of my head, and one of those I only remembered because I remembered complaining about how unnecessary and pointless it was (and the only time I remembered it happening and liking it was in the Davey Richards vs. Michael Elgin match at Showdown in the Sun: Day 2, which worked because it was part of a truly epic match and it was the first time someone had done it in ROH in almost seven years).
Now that that little rant is over, let me give my last gripe about this finish: If Ciampa’s knee is so weak that getting hit in the knee with a dropkick causes him to start selling in the middle of a Superman comeback to the point where he was unable to avoid a move he had been avoiding all match, shouldn’t the weakness of Ciampa’s knee have been a focal point of the match? It also makes Ciampa look like an idiot for taking the brace off when it turns out his knee isn’t ready to be without it. Why not just have Ciampa wear the knee-brace, have Truth slide Lethal the Book of Truth for the weapon-shot, and save the big moment of â€"Ciampa is wrestling without his knee brace for the first time" for a later match where it can be the focal point of the match, and in a spot where people will actually remember it (because coming out of this match, all anyone will remember is Lethal turning heel and winning the title).
And speaking of the heel turn, I’m not a fan of it. It just feels very random. If the angle is that Lethal is so desperate that he is willing to join the House of Truth to win the title, shouldn’t you have him lose to Ciampa cleanly first so that he has a reason to do something so desperate?
WINNER GETS AN IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH AT WAR OF THE WORLDS: Michael Elgin vs. Kevin Steen- 8.25/10
Two tough motherf*ckers dropping each other on their heads and still managing to find the strength to get back up.
LADDER WAR TO RESTORE THE LINEAGE OF THE ROH WORLD TITLE: Adam Cole(c) vs. Jay Briscoe(â€"Real ROH World Championâ€)- 8.5/10
An extremely violent match that lived up to the reputation that Ladder War has developed. Jay worked over Cole’s back, Cole worked over Jay’s head, and both men took some absolutely BRUTAL bumps. The story here (aside from the above working over of body parts) was that Jay had some chances to win but Cole had made him so angry that he went to beat on Cole instead of getting the sure win. This was only an issue once or twice (there weren’t many teases of someone getting the belt), but the fans seemed unhappy with it (there was even a small â€"GET THE BELT!†chant). As expected, Hardy and Bennett interfered on behalf of Cole while Mark Briscoe interfered on behalf of his brother.
The finish was different than you usually see in a ladder match, but it definitely seemed to be the start of Jay’s next chapter, and can definitely be used as the beginning of building Jay up for another, much more tame title match at some point down the line (they could have Jay realize that he had the match won but let his answer get the best of him, so he refocuses himself on being a better mat wrestler and not letting his anger get the best of him).
Another great show from ROH, with a strong undercard and a double main event that definitely delivered. I do have one complaint, though, which will take the form of the following letter:
Dear ROH Director,
The action in the ring is more interesting to watch than shots of the announcers sitting there and talking, SO STOP F*CKING CUTTING TO THE ANNOUNCERS WHILE THE MATCH IS GOING ON!
Sincerely,
Big Red Machine
Thankfully someone smartened the director up a bit before the main events started, but it still bugged the hell out of me on the undercard, and it happens way too often on the TV show, too.
CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. RODERICK STRONG (w/the Decade & Adam Page)- 6.75/10
Great for an opener, but I was expecting a lot more out of this match. Cedric has been having a great year so far, and it really felt like this was the place for another quality performance to really help elevate both Cedric himself and this feud.
After the match, Jimmy Jacobs cut a promo putting over their angle and transitioning us into…
TAG TEAM SCRAMBLE MATCH: Andrew Everett, ACH, & Tadarius Thomas vs. Jimmy Jacobs, BJ Whitmer, & Adam Page (w/Roderick Strong)- 6.75/10
The Decade wouldn’t shake hands with the young guys, so ACH went around shaking the fans’ hands. This angered Jacobs, who pulled out his spike, and threatened to stab ACH, but the ref took it away. We haven’t had a tag team scramble in ROH for a while, and this match reminded me why they were so much fun. Lots of good action here. This was the perfect match to let Page and Everett show off what they can do (and to let ACH and Tadarius do what they normally do). Jacobs and Whitmer played their parts perfectly, as usual, just being great heels… while even coming up with an innovative dive spot I have never seen before (when you see it, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about).
After the match the heels taunted the injured ACH by threatening to stab ACH’s partner, Tadarius Thomas, with Jacobs’ spike, but didn’t (also disrespecting Thomas by saying that he isn’t enough of a threat to warrant Jacobs’ signature weapon).
TRUTH MARTINI PROMO- good
MATT TAVEN vs. TRUTH MARTINI’S MYSTERY WRESTLER- No rating. Bad segment.
They bantered a bit, then Truth kicked Taven in the nuts. There was no mystery wrestler. I was hoping for something to actually happen in this feud other than Truth costing Taven matches.
SILAS YOUNG vs. R.D. EVANS (w/Veda Scott & â€"RAMONâ€)- 5.5/10
I have never heard a crowd pop so loudly for a Dusty Finish.
MICHAEL BENNETT PROMO- boring.
MARK BRISCOE PROMO- very good. If he had cut this as pre-2013 non-mentally damaged Mark Briscoe, this would have been awesome.
NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH: Mark Briscoe vs. Michael Bennett (w/Maria Kanellis)- 6.5/10
Mark dives onto Bennett to start the match. Then we got some early crowd-brawling, and I really have to complement ROH on this. Normally indy crowd brawls are poorly lit, or there are too many fans blocking the camera, or the camera can’t follow them easily (and even more often it is all three), but here the camera stayed with them the whole time. and it was well lit, and they always managed to get shots over the fans heads so you could see everything clearly. Major props to everyone involved here, from the cameramen to whoever set up the lighting to the wrestlers themselves for staying in the aisles and staircases as much as possible.
The match was short compared to what you might expect, but extremely intense and very violent. At one point Bennett set Mark up for a spear… and while waiting for Mark to get up, he started to sing Edge’s entrance theme. That made me crack up.
MATT TAVEN LOOKS FOR TRUTH MARTINI BACKSTAGE- We didn’t quite get to see what happened, but when the camera finally caught up to them, Truth was leaving the room while Taven was laid out on the floor while EMTs were attending to him. Remember what I said about something needing to actually happen in this feud other than Truth costing Taven matches? This was that.
MATT HARDY PROMO- He says that ROH had its best financial year in 2013 and claims that the reason for this is because of himself and Adam Cole. He tries to get heat with the same Jesus-related metaphors about Adam Cole that Steve Corino was using with himself and Hardy last year, says that the Briscoes are done for, and then beats up Cheeseburger. Like most of Matt’s promos in ROH, the content was mediocre, but it got heat anyway because the fans just plain don’t like Matt.
WINNER GETS AN ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE SHOT: Raymond Rowe & Hanson vs. reDRagon vs. Forever Hooligans- 7/10
Great stuff. Great action and some good storytelling, with everyone playing their roles perfectly.
2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH FOR THE ROH TV TITLE: Tommaso Ciampa(c) vs. Jay Lethal- 6.25/10
So the match was going well for a while, until they did this one spot that I hated. Ciampa hit Lethal with a bunch of German Suplexes, then went to hit him with a big lariat, but Lethal blocked it by getting his boot up in Ciampa’s face… only for Ciampa to just come right back and hit Lethal with a big lariat anyway. So what was the point of Lethal not really selling the Germans in order to block the first lariat if he is just going to get hit with another lariat right after it anyway? Normally this sort of thing would annoy me, but if it only happened once, I wouldn’t comment on it. In this match, though, it marked the beginning of the end for my enjoyment of this match.
We soon got a ref bump (or maybe the ref bump was right before this) and Truth Martini came down to ringside. He took Ciampa’s knee-brace (which Ciampa had made a big deal of taking off before the match, as if to say that now, a year and a half after the injury, his knee is finally fully healed) and slid it to Lethal. For someone else, this would have been fine, but while doing all of this, Truth Martini was carrying the Book of Truth around with him, which looks like it would hurt a hell of a lot more than Ciampa’s dinky little knee-brace. Furthermore, all of this occurred RIGHT IN FRONT OF NIGEL MCGUINNESS, who was doing commentary, and Nigel, who, as ROH Matchmaker has led a campaign to â€"restore honor†to ROH, did absolutely nothing to stop it.
So Lethal hits Ciampa with the knee brace… but Ciampa kicks out. Lethal then hits Ciampa with his big diving elbow drop Randy Savage tribute finisher... and Ciampa kicks out IMMEDIATELY. He then begins a Superman comeback, getting to his feet while his whole body is shaking, clenching his fists in front of him, responding to some superkicks from Lethal by just flipping Lethal off… so Lethal dropkicks Ciampa in the knee, and apparently the knee is the off-button for Ciampa’s Superman comeback, because he sold that. Lethal then hit him with the Lethal Injection (which he had been trying unsuccessfully to hit all match), and pinned him. What the hell is the point of doing a Superman comeback if it only lasts three moves and you don’t actually ever get to the â€"comeback†part of it before getting cut off again? And why totally no-sell a finisher if you are just going to get beaten a minute later?
These are things that are supposed to be special, and in order to keep them special, they need to happen only at special times. This is (at least) the sixth time someone has kicked out of a finisher at one in ROH in the past two years. In the first ten years of ROH’s history, it happened exactly once… and pretty much everyone who knows anything about ROH’s history can tell you exactly what match it was and exactly what the spot was. Of the six times it has happened in the last two years, I only remembered two of them off the top of my head, and one of those I only remembered because I remembered complaining about how unnecessary and pointless it was (and the only time I remembered it happening and liking it was in the Davey Richards vs. Michael Elgin match at Showdown in the Sun: Day 2, which worked because it was part of a truly epic match and it was the first time someone had done it in ROH in almost seven years).
Now that that little rant is over, let me give my last gripe about this finish: If Ciampa’s knee is so weak that getting hit in the knee with a dropkick causes him to start selling in the middle of a Superman comeback to the point where he was unable to avoid a move he had been avoiding all match, shouldn’t the weakness of Ciampa’s knee have been a focal point of the match? It also makes Ciampa look like an idiot for taking the brace off when it turns out his knee isn’t ready to be without it. Why not just have Ciampa wear the knee-brace, have Truth slide Lethal the Book of Truth for the weapon-shot, and save the big moment of â€"Ciampa is wrestling without his knee brace for the first time" for a later match where it can be the focal point of the match, and in a spot where people will actually remember it (because coming out of this match, all anyone will remember is Lethal turning heel and winning the title).
And speaking of the heel turn, I’m not a fan of it. It just feels very random. If the angle is that Lethal is so desperate that he is willing to join the House of Truth to win the title, shouldn’t you have him lose to Ciampa cleanly first so that he has a reason to do something so desperate?
WINNER GETS AN IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH AT WAR OF THE WORLDS: Michael Elgin vs. Kevin Steen- 8.25/10
Two tough motherf*ckers dropping each other on their heads and still managing to find the strength to get back up.
LADDER WAR TO RESTORE THE LINEAGE OF THE ROH WORLD TITLE: Adam Cole(c) vs. Jay Briscoe(â€"Real ROH World Championâ€)- 8.5/10
An extremely violent match that lived up to the reputation that Ladder War has developed. Jay worked over Cole’s back, Cole worked over Jay’s head, and both men took some absolutely BRUTAL bumps. The story here (aside from the above working over of body parts) was that Jay had some chances to win but Cole had made him so angry that he went to beat on Cole instead of getting the sure win. This was only an issue once or twice (there weren’t many teases of someone getting the belt), but the fans seemed unhappy with it (there was even a small â€"GET THE BELT!†chant). As expected, Hardy and Bennett interfered on behalf of Cole while Mark Briscoe interfered on behalf of his brother.
The finish was different than you usually see in a ladder match, but it definitely seemed to be the start of Jay’s next chapter, and can definitely be used as the beginning of building Jay up for another, much more tame title match at some point down the line (they could have Jay realize that he had the match won but let his answer get the best of him, so he refocuses himself on being a better mat wrestler and not letting his anger get the best of him).
Another great show from ROH, with a strong undercard and a double main event that definitely delivered. I do have one complaint, though, which will take the form of the following letter:
Dear ROH Director,
The action in the ring is more interesting to watch than shots of the announcers sitting there and talking, SO STOP F*CKING CUTTING TO THE ANNOUNCERS WHILE THE MATCH IS GOING ON!
Sincerely,
Big Red Machine
Thankfully someone smartened the director up a bit before the main events started, but it still bugged the hell out of me on the undercard, and it happens way too often on the TV show, too.