Ring Of Honor Review 1/30/16

By Nathan Neumann

@Headliner5

Hello Ringers, Nathan here once again with yet another ROH TV review as the first month of the year 2016 comes to a close and what a month it was.  The commentary team this week was mix of Kevin Kelly and Mr. Wrestling 3 (not Steve Corino) and Nigel McGuinness was mixed in there as well. They hype up the show by telling us what we will see during the hour before sending it to the ring for the first match of the night.

Match 1
Masada vs. Roderick Strong {C}
ROH World Television Championship match

Thoughts: The “Roddy vs. The World” gimmick continues this week as he takes on former CZW wrestler Masada (Masada may still wrestle for CZW but I honestly would have no idea because I don’t follow that promotion at all).  The match is for the ROH World TV title, the two feel each other out and Masada gets the first real offense as he locks Roddy in a knee bar early on. The action spills to the outside of the ring with Masada maintaining control, Masada picks Roddy up and slams him on the outside of the ring. 

Roddy quickly recovers after Masada picks him up and drops Masada back first onto the ring apron.  Back in the ring Masada hits a disgusting backdrop driver and gets a near fall out of the exchange.  During the move Roderick’s own knee hit him in the nose on the way down.  Masada presses the advantage by hitting an awful looking powerbomb to pick up a near fall.  Roderick Strong would eventually come back and pick up the win over Masada via pinfall with a jumping knee.

Match Result: Roderick Strong defeats Masada via pinfall with a running knee.

Match Rating: **1/2

My favorite thing about this match (and these “Roddy vs. the World” matches in general) is how much work Roderick is putting into them.  He had one hell of a 2015 and 2016 looks to be a very promising year for Mr. ROH.

After the match Roderick gets in the microphone and taunts Bobby Fish telling Bobby that he’s old and wants to be him. This brings Fish out to the ring and Roddy tells Fish to go screw himself after they have some heated words. Roderick throws the microphone at Fish’s chest as the segment comes to a close.

From there, we are sent back to the ring for the next match.

Match 2
Punisher Martinez vs. Colby Corino
2016 Top Prospect Tournament First round match

Thoughts: I’m already a huge fan of this years Top Prospect tournament over last year's. Last year's wasn’t bad (and we got Donovan Dijak out of it) but some of the matches were horrendous to watch. This match although I’m not a huge fan of Colby Corino showcased the ability of Punisher Martinez a guy who is instantly noticeable due to his size.  Usually size can be a bad thing in ROH because bigger guys can’t keep up with their smaller peers but Punisher Martinez is really fun to watch.

The match begins and Colby immediately realizes how outmatched he is and begins chopping away at the much bigger Martinez who no sells all of his offense before hitting a flurry of splashes on Colby in the corner.  Martinez hits a kryptonite crunch into a backbreaker for a near fall, which surprisingly didn’t put Colby away.  Colby recovers and hits a somersault plancha on the outside.

Punisher doesn’t go down and instead shakes it off before powerbombing Colby on the outside, Punisher than hits Colby with another powerbomb this time on the ring apron.  The match finally gets back in the ring where it was pretty much academic from here as Punisher Martinez would hit Colby Corino with a chokeslam variation to get the pinfall victory and advance in the tournament.  Really fun match, I’m not a huge fan of Colby but Punisher is a guy to be watched in 2016 for sure.

Match Result: Punisher Martinez defeats Colby Corino via pinfall after a chokeslam variation. 

Match Rating: **

After the match, BJ Whitmer gets on the microphone and begins taunting Mr. Wrestling 3 whom he thinks is Steve Corino and wants him to unmask. Mr. Wrestling 3 won't do it...so Whitmer hits Colby Corino with three exploder suplexes in succession. From there we head to a commercial break.

Back from commercial and we see a recap of last week where Nigel McGuinness announced the main event for the 14th anniversary show as it’s Adam Cole vs. Kyle O’Reilly vs. Jay Lethal for the ROH World Championship in a triple threat match.  After that Nigel McGuinness joins commentary for the main event.

Main Event – Match 3
reDRagon vs. Adam Cole and Jay Lethal

Thoughts: Fun match that was used to hype the main event for the 14th Anniversary show in Vegas but unfortunately Bobby Fish is lost in this entire thing. The match begins and Lethal and O’Reilly start things out by feeling each other out for a few minutes before O’Reilly locks on a cross arm breaker in the first real offensive maneuver of the match up.  O’Reilly continues to pick apart Lethal’s arm while kneeing him repeatedly in the back. 

Fish gets tagged into the match but can’t get anything going and is found deep in the corner of Cole and Lethal as they work him over.  At one point Cole turns around and spits at O’Reilly, which infuriates O’Reilly and brings him into the ring.  Todd Sinclair goes to cut O’Reilly off and not let him get into the ring while Cole and Lethal double team Fish behind the referees back.

O’Reilly finally gets the hot tag and hits a tornado DDT on Lethal for a near fall meanwhile on the outside of the ring Fish who since has recovered a bit is going at it with Adam Cole.  Fish drives Cole back first into the barricade on the outside of the ring.  Back in the ring reDRagon hits a backbreaker/top rope knee combination to score a near fall on Lethal.  Lethal recovers and hits the Lethal Combination, Cole follows it up with a superkick and then Lethal hits an Enziguri for a near fall. 

Lethal ascends to the top rope while Fish is down in the ring and hits Hail To The King for a near fall which is broken up by O’Reilly. Lethal kicks O’Reilly and then accidentally hits Cole with the Lethal Injection, reDRagon capitalizes on the situation by getting rid of Lethal on the outside and then hitting Cole with Chasing The Dragon to get the pinfall victory back inside of the ring.

Match Result: ReDRagon defeats Jay Lethal and Adam Cole via pinfall after hitting Chasing The Dragon on Cole.

Match Rating: ***

Good match which could result in some good build going into the 14th anniversary event in February.  This hour of wrestling is definitely one that you should check out if you have a spare hour during the week as it was action packed and every minute of said hour was handled the way it should be.

Unfortunately that brings an end to another ROH review from yours truly.  ROH is headed towards an exciting time and I’m glad to be along for the ride while providing you with these weekly reviews of these really good shows.  As always thank you for reading.

Finally make sure to follow me on Twitter  (@Headliner5) and be sure to follow the Eyes On The Ring main account @EyesOnTheRing. Feel free to tweet us your thoughts on anything pro wrestling whether it be ROH, WWE, Lucha Underground or anything else.

It is also with regret that I should inform everyone that unlike the tail end of last years Lucha Underground season 1, I will not be able to provide reviews for season 2 due to a scheduling conflict. I really wish I could but it’s impossible; Comcast cut the El Rey West Coast feed, which is usually when I watched the show last season.

In closing, make sure to check out the radio show tonight and every Sunday night as we come to you live via http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/ElitePodcastNetwork at 11:00pm EST. Finally be sure to visit us on facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/EyesOnTheRing and while you’re there make sure to hit the like button.

Until next time Ringers, keep your Eyes On The Ring and I will see you next week.

-Nathan