ROH Review for 1/24/15

Ring Of Honor Wrestling Review 1/24/15
By Nathan Neumann (Twitter: @Headliner5)

Hello Eyes On The Ring readers another week has gone by and that means that I am here once again with my review of Ring Of Honor television.  I am about to tell you everything you need to know about ROH TV for the week so lets get down to it.

First of all I would like to mention that this week’s show opened up with a brand new video intro this is something that I have been begging to see for a while now.  Hopefully this one will be able to remain current for a while and that they wont have to change it for quite some time.

The show opened with a video hyping the match tonight between The Briscoe’s and Kingdom members Matt Taven and Michael Bennett.  The Briscoes are now with former TNA knockout ODB which is fine.  It sucks that she is there because ROH doesn’t really have a women’s division so I don’t know what they plan to do with her exactly but her being there doesn’t bother me a bit.  She fits in well with the Briscoes and their shenanigans.

From there we head inside the arena and get an intro from Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino who welcome us to the show.  From there we go to the ring and our first match of the night.

Match 1
The Briscoes (Jay and Mark Briscoe) vs. The Kingdom (Michael Bennett and Matt Taven)

Result: The Briscoes win the match via DQ, when Michael Bennett hits Jay Briscoe in the face with the title of love.

Thoughts: The match starts out with some pure craziness where all four men are brawling on the outside of the ring. Mark Briscoe was able to get Matt Taven to the ground and then hop up on the ring apron to deliver an elbow drop to Taven on the outside of the ring. Meanwhile Jay Briscoe grabs a chair and chucks it at Bennett’s face. From there, Taven throws Mark Briscoe into the ringside barricade as we go to the commercial.  Back from commercial and the match has officially started as all four men finally decided to get into the ring. There wasn’t much to this match to be quite honest. There were a lot of running shoulder tackles and few things here and there but nothing really noteworthy.

The match was entertaining because I am always entertained by The Briscoes and Taven is decent as well. But, beyond that there wasn’t much to this one. The finish came when Michael Bennett grabbed the “Title of Love” and hit Jay Briscoe in the face to cause a disqualification. From there ODB runs to the ring and hits Matt Taven with a chair. She then tries to go after Maria Kanellis but she wisely runs up the ramp though the curtain and away from certain danger for now. ODB grabs the microphone post match and says that she is the new “Bitch In Town” (because the word bitch is in her name--or at least that’s what the B in ODB stands for).

Match Rating: *¾

Back from a commercial break and we see a pre-taped interview from Jimmy Jacobs informing us of the importance of the Top Prospect tournament.   

From the aforementioned video package we go into the next match which is another match in the 2015 Ring Of Honor Top Prospect tournament.

Match 2
Beer City Bruiser vs. Mikey Webb
First round match in the 2015 Top Prospect Tournament

Result: Beer City Bruiser defeats Mikey Webb with an Emerald Fusion to advance to the next round of the top prospect tournament.

Thoughts: Let me tell ya something, kids. If you missed this match you missed a doozy. No, seriously if you missed this match, thank your lucky stars; it was absolutely atrocious.  

So far in this tournament, we have seen three of the four first round matches. One of which was good and two of which were not at all. This match unfortunately fits in with the latter because it wasn’t good at all.  To put things in perspective, Mikey Webb is your average ROH guy (in this case, that’s good because he fits the mould of what an ROH wrestler could be). He’s got the body type and the look. His opponent, Beer City Bruiser is a big fat drunk who looks like an idiot and didn’t impress me at all.

I try to remain unbiased during these matches and open up my mind a bit...but this match was bad and I have a feeling it was Bruiser’s fault. Bruiser throws Webb out of the ring and when he gets back in the ring at 19 (there’s a 20 count in ROH, by the way), Bruiser continues the beat down in a match that is WAAAAY too long (kind of like the review of this match).

The story of the match was Mikey Webb’s inability to suplex the much fatter Bruiser and when it happened:

A. it shouldn’t have because Bruiser is a much bigger guy than the guy who was suplexing him and

B. Nobody cared about it at all.  

Bruiser then clotheslines Webb and pins him but Webb kicks out at two and then hits a sliced Bread number 2 for a near fall of his own.  The match finally ends with an Emerald Fusion to advance in the tournament which means that I get to see this guy try to wrestle another match to which I say “oh joy.”

So to recap the top prospect tournament: So far in 2015 we have had three matches one of which was good and two of which were not so go--actually, they sucked.  I don’t understand Ring Of Honor’s philosophy of having unknowns wrestle lengthy matches. Sometimes, less is more!

But, I digress. I’ve written way to much about this match than I originally intended on doing.  Cheers to you if you stuck with me during this portion of the write up. You truly deserve a reward and I on the other hand wish I could get the nine minutes of my life back that I wasted on watching that match.  It was only nine minutes but it felt like an eternity.

Match Rating: *

From that disaster of a match I’ve already forgotten about we go to the main event which is the ROH Television debut of Alberto El Patron so lets get right to it.

Main Event – Match 3
Christopher Daniels vs. Alberto El Patron

Result: Alberto El Patron defeats Christopher Daniels via submission with a Cross Arm Breaker.

Thoughts: Man this match was good I’m not a huge fan of Daniels (even less of a fan of his partner Kazarian) but when he wants to go he is very capable of doing so.  I noticed that when I was tweeting about this match as I was watching it that I called Alberto El Patron by his WWE name a few times (Alberto Del Rio) because old habits die-hard.  Early on in the match Daniels does a dropkick to Patron and Alberto goes down and rolls to the outside of the ring where Daniels follows him.  On the outside of the ring El Patron hits a step up enziguri and throws Daniels in to the barricade.  Daniels gets up but promptly gets put back down with a closeline by El Patron as we go to a commercial break.

Sidenote: Remember my Jay Lethal HealthAlert video? Here is is again. Be sure to watch it before you continue with the review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0DkodsowtQ

Thoughts, continued: Okay. Now that we got that out of the way (No, seriously! Did you watch that commercial? It’s super awesome), we’re back from commercial and El Patron has Daniels in the ropes and hangs upside down on the outside of the ropes as he has Daniels left arm in an arm bar. Meanwhile Jay Lethal makes his way down to the commentator’s table as El Patron hits Daniels with a top rope super plex. The two reset and Alberto catches Daniels coming off of the ropes with a tilt a whirl backbreaker for a near fall.  From there Daniels locks on desperation Koji clutch.

Del Rio recovers and while Daniels is still on his knees Del Rio kicks Daniels square in the face for a two count.  Daniels kicks out and the two men make it to the corner.  El Patron hoists Daniels up on the top rope and delivers a top rope reverse suplex and gets a near fall out of it.  The finish would come about a minute later when El Patron catches Daniels in the cross arm breaker Daniels quickly realizes that he has no place to go and taps out to the hold before Del Rio can do any further damage to his arm.  Good solid match and both men shake hands after it’s over.

From here we get The House Of Truth who come out and try to attack Alberto El Patron but both Daniels and Kazarian were there to make sure it didn’t happen.  A quality main event this week on the show and a great show of respect near the end with the code of honor and the Daniels helping chase off the HOT good stuff and good progression if they decide to do anything with it.

Match Rating: **¾

That however will do it for me as I bring an end to another Ring Of Honor wrestling review.  This show was good for the most part (minus that second match) the main event is definitely worth checking out.  So if you have about fifteen or twenty minutes to spare this week seek it out because you wont be disappointed.  I’m interested to see what they do with Alberto El Patron come the ROH 13th Anniversary show in Vegas which I will be at but for you guys that can’t make it out there it will be shown live on Pay Per View and

I would definitely recommend ordering it trust me it will be worth it.  

So until next week Eyes On The Ring faithful I am Nathan saying so long for now and keep your Eyes On The Ring and also please be sure to follow Eyes On The Ring on twitter @EyesOnTheRing and myself @Headliner5.  Last but not least check out EyesOnTheRing.blogspot.com for more reviews from myself and stuff from the rest of the writers here at Eyes On The Ring.  

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