Hello Ringers! Nathan here with another Ring of Honor review. We are doing something a bit different this week. I attended the ROH Aftershock Tour this weekend as they were in Hopkins, Minnesota. It was a pretty good show for the most part. Out of the four shows I’ve been to since they started running this venue, I’m not sure quite yet where this one ranks, but something about it felt like it lacked in some areas. But, I will get to that as the review goes on.
I went to this show with a friend of mine (the same friend I attend all of the wrestling shows I go to with--you can follow him on Twitter at--@SuperProLando). We were in the third row in Section C. This show unlike the last one I attended in April wasn’t a TV taping which meant it wasn’t as exhausting (the last show didn’t get out until 11:00pm this one got out an hour earlier) but even with that I thought the last show may have been a bit better than this one. Well enough of my rambling let’s get to the actual important part of this review.
Dark Match
The Romantic Outlaws beat Paco & Danny Aaron
Thoughts: Not much I can say about this match, because out of everyone involved I only knew who The Romantic Touch was. I think I may have recognized Paco from the last Hopkins show, but I could be wrong about that. There wasn’t much to this match it was your typical average dark match to get the crowd going a bit and the Romantic Outlaws got the win.
Result: The Romantic Outlaws win the match.
Match 1
Mark Briscoe vs. Danny Duggan
Thoughts: This match was solid for an opener. Mark Briscoe, while I like him, can be very hit and miss when it comes to singles competition but I thought he was fine here. It was good to see Danny Duggan on the show once again as he seems to be a guy that they like using when they come to the Hopkins area and if they keep using him on these shows I have absolutely zero problem with them doing so.
Duggan stands out because he wears a Mr. Perfect type singlet this time it was orange but the last time it was green. The crowd was super into Mark, which is the usual per a Hopkins crowd or any other crowd for that matter. This was a decent match. But, I would like to see Mark have more substance going forward. Because as of now ROH seems to be more invested in Jay Briscoe while Mark is stuck doing a bunch of grunt work and randomness. He still puts out good quality matches with what he’s given but if he’s going to be taken seriously like Jay is? They need to do more with him. The finish of the match happened when Mark caught Danny in a fisherman buster and pinned him for the 1-2-3.
Result: Mark Briscoe defeats Danny Duggan via Pinfall with a fisherman buster
Match 2
Silas Young and Beer City Bruiser vs. War Machine (Hanson and Raymond Rowe)
Thoughts: This match was highly entertaining. I’m a big fan of Silas Young and Hanson and Rowe are great as well and I enjoy their tag matches whenever I’ve seen them live. What I didn’t like about this match was Beer City Bruiser. He sticks out like a sore thumb and not in a good way. To me, he doesn’t fit the mold of Ring Of Honor at all. But, I think I’ve said that before and I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record. Silas Young did all he could and so did Beer City Bruiser but the chemistry between War Machine vs. the non-chemistry of a team that was just thrown together in Young and Bruiser proved to be the deciding factor in this one as War Machine hit a Suplex/top rope leg drop combo to score the win after pinning Silas Young for the 1-2-3.
Result: War Machine defeats Silas Young and Beer City Bruiser via Pinfall with Fall Out
Match 3
ACH vs. Dalton Castle
Thoughts: This match was very good; this was one of the matches I was really looking forward to on this show. So, I am glad it delivered in a big way. ACH is always on with everything he does and half the things he can do I can’t figure out how he even does them. This was my first time seeing Dalton Castle live and I wasn’t disappointed. The guy may have a ridiculous gimmick (in fact it’s not ridiculous; it’s awesome!). But, once you get past that and see what a great wrestler he is (if ridiculous gimmicks aren’t quite your thing), then he’s a pleasure to watch in the ring as he does what it is that he does which is put on a show to entertain the masses. The match came to an end when ACH hit the downed Dalton Castle with a 450 splash to score the win via pinfall. Like I said earlier really good match part of me wishes that Dalton would have won but I completely understand why he didn’t.
Result: ACH defeats Dalton Castle via pinfall with a 450 Splash
Match 4
Michael Elgin vs. Matt Taven
Thoughts: I don’t know what it was about this match but it did absolutely nothing for me. I like Taven and Elgin is capable of being good in the ring. But ever since Elgin started doing this new character that he’s been doing? His entertainment value has taken a turn for the worse. There was about a three month period when I thought he was getting really good. In fact, he was really good. But since then he has really fallen off and I’m not sure quite what happened.
This match was slow, methodical and just plain boring. The thing that really killed this match for me was the fact that the entire time I was watching it I didn’t once think that Taven might win. He came close on a few occasions. But, I knew at the end of the day that Elgin was going to win which he did with an Elgin Bomb to score the pinfall victory. This match could have been two minutes shorter and it would have been a lot better in my view.
Result: Michael Elgin defeated Matt Taven via pinfall after an Elgin Bomb
After the match, Elgin got on the microphone and said that he is about to hop on a plane and go over to Japan to compete in this year's G1 Climax. This got a lot of boos from the crowd.
The only thing good that may come from this is that once Elgin comes back to ROH he will be more accepted but we will have to see how that whole thing plays out.
Match 5
Michael Bennett vs. Will Ferrara vs. Cheeseburger vs. Moose
Four Corner Survival Match
Thoughts: Okay, I’m kinda getting sick of there being a four-way match on every single show that I’ve been at. These matches at least to me have always came off as “hey these are the last four guys that got put on the show and we have nothing for them...so let's just put them in a four way match." I’m not a huge fan of that. And although I don’t like either Cheeseburger or Will Ferrara they deserve more than to be put in throw away matches, but I digress.
The star of this match was Michael Bennett as he did a great job at playing a heel. From the start of this match, I automatically assumed that Moose would be the one to win the match. However I was wrong as Michael Bennett ended up winning the match with a weird looking piledriver on Cheeseburger to score the pinfall victory.
Result: Michael Bennett wins the match pinning Cheeseburger after hitting a piledriver.
Match 6
Adam Cole vs. Bobby Fish
Thoughts: WOW!!! What a match, the bell rang to signal the start of the match and the crowd as going insane for the first two minutes and they hasn’t even touched each other up until that point. They had a nice mixture of comedy and pure pro wrestling which was nice to see. I’m not a huge fan of comedy wrestling but when it’s done right it can be great and this was done right and it was great. There was a lot of fan participation in this match as well while the two guys were on the outside as Cole ran the head of Fish into a kid's foot.
Before they got back into the ring ,Cole told another kid to move out of the way and when the kid did he acted as if he was going to throw Fish in to the kid's chair but then did a full rotation before tossing Fish back into the ring to continue the match from the ring. Cole then got back on the outside of the ring to taunt the same kid before going back into the ring to try and finish off Fish. The finish of the match came when Adam Cole hit Bobby Fish with a brainbuster onto his knee in a very good match and a match that gets my vote for best match of the night.
Result: Adam Cole defeats Bobby Fish via pinfall after a Brainbuster onto the knee.
Match 7
Jay Briscoe and ODB vs. Jay Lethal and Truth Martini
Thoughts: This match did a great job in marrying two things together, first off the ongoing feud between former ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe as well as current ROH World Champion and ROH Television Champion Jay Lethal. Plus, it continued on with the story of Truth Martini vs. ODB. If you remember during the last show I attended in Hopkins (Review Here), ODB and Truth Martini had a one on one match. This match was decent enough and the live crowd was totally into both Briscoe and ODB.
ODB got a nice hometown reaction, and as always Jay Briscoe is a total pro when it comes to getting the fans to not only respond to him but the match as well. One of the more ridiculous spots in this match came when Lethal forcibly kissed ODB only to have ODB do it to him later on in the match. The finish of the match came when ODB grabbed her flask took a drink from it and spat it in the face of Truth Martini to blind him and pick up the win via pinfall. Truth was great in this match as he is each and every time I’ve seen him because he knows exactly what needs to be done and more importantly than that he knows how to accomplish it.
Result: Jay Briscoe and ODB defeat Jay Lethal and Truth Martini via pinfall with alcohol to Truth Martini’s face by ODB
Going into this match, I kind of knew that Jay Lethal wasn’t going to take the pinfall loss; if he did that would have been a bad decision on ROH’s part. So, I’m glad to see it didn’t happen.
From here, we go to the main event of the evening.
Main Event – Match 8
AJ Styles vs. Kyle O’Reilly vs. Roderick Strong
Thoughts: I’m not sure exactly what to say about this one, I was really looking forward to it but there was something about it that felt off to me. It started out hot and all three guys were putting their best work forward. This was more of a WWE style three way match than a ROH style three way in the sense that there were at most times in this match only two guys fighting it out while the other was recovering out on the floor. There was a lot of things they did in the match that were very well done and the match for the most part was really good but the end of it was when it all fell apart for me.
Strong suplexed O’Reilly onto his knee and got the pinfall victory seemingly out of nowhere while Styles was out on the floor. I understand that Strong is the number one contender and everything so having him win makes perfect sense but having AJ Styles not even be in the ring while the deciding fall took place seemed a bit weird although I knew that AJ wasn’t going to take the fall. The only thing that could have made this a bit better from my point of view was if it was an elimination style match but if that were the case then AJ would have had to get pinned at some point (if Roderick was still going to win) and they may have not of wanted that to happen.
Result: Roderick Strong defeats Kyle O’Reilly and AJ Styles when Strong suplexes O’Reilly on to his knee to get the pinfall victory.
A good show if not a great one (I’ll have to watch it back when I can to truly decide that) but overall it was a fun time and it’s definitely worth checking out once it makes it to DVD for the Cole vs. Fish match alone.
A return date was announced for November 14, 2015, which will be the third time Ring Of Honor has the Hopkins Eisenhower Community Center in the year. Minnesota is definitely the place for wrestling once again and I can’t complain.
The show on November 14 will be night two of Survival Of The Fittest. So I’ve already marked my calendar and started making plans for it, because I don’t ever want to miss an ROH show in Hopkins.
That however will do it for me and this special ROH Review. This will be a recurring thing where if I am going to a live ROH Event, an event review will be posted in place of the TV show that airs that same night. Overall, this was a good show and you should definitely check it out once it’s released on DVD.
In closing make sure to follow me on Twitter @Headliner5 and also make sure to follow the Eyes On The Ring main account over @EyesOnTheRing. Make sure to check out http://www.EyesOnTheRing.com for more of these reviews plus make sure to check out everything that the Eyes On The Ring team writes throughout the week.
Finally make sure to check out Eyes On The Ring radio each and every Sunday night as we come to you live via http://www.blogtalkradio.com/elitepodcastnetwork at 11:00pm Eastern Standard Time. Also make sure to check out and like us over at http://www.Facebook.com/EyesOnTheRing for now I am Nathan saying so long ringers thanks for reading and keep your Eyes On The Ring.
0 comments:
Post a Comment