Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted April 19, 2018 Awards Moderator Share Posted April 19, 2018 (edited) I've got no prior experience of watching War Raiders, but I can't see them getting very far. They look kind of like a bulkier Ascension, and as pointed out above, their names sound far too similar to Harper and especially Rowan. Their having been in ROH might help them in NXT but if The Revival can't get anywhere on the main roster, these two will be lucky to do any better than Konnor and Viktor. Shayna's segment was very good this week. Can't see any of the people in that locker room standing up to her - or coming out of it in one piece if they do. Edited April 19, 2018 by HarmonicGenerator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 Interesting transitional episode this week, with a lot of guys features who'll not be there from now on. Good to see Lars getting a clean victory over Dain - with Sanity off to Smackdown that's the right choice.  And it was a very good match - Sullivan continues to improve and look super strong. I agree with @HarmonicGenerator that I'm not sold on War Raiders.  They remind me of Ascension, yes, but also The Highlanders.  They'll be treated well in NXT but not sure they're really WWE material as a team.  The one with the bigger beard (Hanson?) is certainly a hoss though, perhaps he'd do well as a singles act. Ricochet looked good against Stone Cold Steve Aichner.  That finisher looks like an accident waiting to happen though - right on the neck! Candice LaRae looked surprisingly awkward for someone with such a rep - maybe first match jitters.  Selina is ridiculously hot - I wonder if she'll wrestle on Smackdown or just manage? --- This year NXT has done a good job of getting their next stars lined up before the exodus, so we have Ricochet, EC3. War Raiders to fill the gap left by Almas and Sanity.  It's very clearly going to be the Mr and Mrs Wrestling / Undisputed Era show this year though - great for ROH fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 Hanson, the bigger beardier one of War Machine (not to be That Indy Mark, but I'm never gonna call them Raiders, those are 10p crisps) is awesome and has made that act work. I'm not sure how well they'll do here but if they break up he's the guy. Ricochet the first to do a 630 in WWE? Remember seeing Jerrelle Clark do that in TNA a decade ago and assumed he was the next big thing. I was 13, mind That Kona Reeves vignette was weird. Remember him being decent enough in the little showcases he has had on NXT but he seems to have changed his look a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Your Fight Site Posted April 19, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 19, 2018 I get the feeling they’re going for a not-self aware gimmick with Kina Reeves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted April 19, 2018 Awards Moderator Share Posted April 19, 2018 Jerrelle Clark was Mr 630, wasn’t he? That move was pretty much all he had going for him. I can’t criticise though, I used to think Jason Cross would be a breakout star in the X Division because he could do a Shooting Star Leg Drop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Accident Prone Posted April 20, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 20, 2018 On 4/19/2018 at 11:28 AM, Loki said: NXT has done a good job of getting their next stars lined up before the exodus, so we have Ricochet, EC3. War Raiders to fill the gap left by Almas and Sanity.  It's very clearly going to be the Mr and Mrs Wrestling / Undisputed Era show this year though - great for ROH fans. That's a bit of an unfair assumption. Gargano and Candice, along with most of he NXT roster, aren't who you would call 'ROH guys'. There is a case for Undisputed being the collection of ROH lads, even though one could say they developed their vital character work elsewhere. Most everyone else on NXT is either home grown or had little-to-nothing to do with ROH though. I'm for sure making a bit of a mountain over this, but it does create a rather interesting study as to the actual influence, relevance and direction of ROH these days. Yes, while they did cram over 6000 fans into a show a couple of weeks back, it could be argued that the numbers were massively helped by 10's of thousands of wresting fans in town looking for something to do. Add in that they had Kota Ibushi making one of his rare US dates and the first Kenny/Cody match (a feud which got it's incredibly hot start in New Japan) , then you're looking at a ROH show that got by on the merits of the weekend alone. ROH 'rassler Silas Young (yes, he's still about) made a point to go on Twitter last 'Mania eve and said; "Last night was amazing 6000 fans came to SuperCard of Honor to watch what ROH wrestling is all about. 13000 fans also attended NXT to watch Ring of Honor wrestlers". If this was an in-character heel tweet, designed to get me frustrated at this nonsense, then it's certainly worked, as by my working only 5 out of the 20 who performed on the NXT show could be considered as ROH wrestlers. It's even more of a giant leap when you factor in the NXT episode taping before the show, then it jumps to 7 out of 27. Coincidentally, this is probably the most heel heat Silas will ever generate in 2018. Lets take the NXT: New Orleans cards that ol'Silas referenced as an example. I'll be using the utterly fantastic wrestling database, Cagematch.net for this. TV Tapings; Kari Sane - 0 ROH matches Lacey Evans - Home grown Otis Dozovic - Home grown Tucker Knight - Home grown Riddick Moss - Home grown Tino Sabbatelli - Home grown Hanson - 138 ROH matches (includes 3 dark matches) Rowe - 112 ROH matches NXT TakeOver: New Orleans Adam Cole - 112 (3 dark) ECIII - 0 Killian Dain - 0 Lars Sullivan - Home grown Velveteen Dream - 0 Ricochet - 1 (2009 6-man tag dark match) Shayna Baszler - 0 Ember Moon - 0 Kyle O'Reilly - 150 (5 dark) Pete Dunne - 0 Roderick Strong - 437 Akam - Home grown Rezar - Home grown Aleister Black - 0 Andrade Almas - 0 Zelina Vega - 0 Johnny Gargano - 1 (2008 dark match) Tommaso Ciampa - 92 (2 dark) That's 7 wrestlers out of 27 who have a solid tie to ROH. That's amazing considering ROH's supposed dominance and influence. If you were to ask a general wrestling fan about independent wrestling, I'd wagerthe first (and maybe only) promotion that will come to mind is ROH (Baron Corbin's fantastic "Go back to Ring Of Honor!" to Dragon Gate star Apollo Crews is a lovely meta example). Yet, WWE's developmental system/third brand, which is treated like an indy and filled with indy stand-outs, shows that the majority of the most promising non-home grown talent either work outside of ROH or, like in Ciampa's case, got fed up and fucked off from ROH to better themselves elsewhere. Gets more tight when you look deeper in the NXT TV roster. Apart from Ohno, Rush and Fish, the rest of the crew is made up of non-ROH talent (Dunne, Seven, Bate, Fabian, Burch, Oney, Miller, Thorne, Candice, Dakota, Cross) and their own home grown talent. So what was my point again? ROH is a bit a shit these days and has been for a while, I think that's where I was going. I probably I just wanted an excuse to tally up some stats, I find it quite relaxing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted April 20, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 20, 2018 I think ROH's been a bit of a non-entity for quite a while, in terms of influence, and it's the NJPW deal that's keeping them relevant - though apparently they're growing their business and doing really well, so they're obviously doing something right. But they're clearly not the "super indie" they once were. Even Undisputed Era, Adam Cole is very much a "ROH guy", though I'd say his route to NXT was as much, if not more, via PWG than ROH anyway, and Fish & O'Reilly as much via their work with NOAH and NJPW as by ROH. NXT has a ton of indie lads, for sure, but Ring of Honor isn't a byword for "The Indies" any more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Accident Prone Posted April 20, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 20, 2018 I was going to bring up Cole/O'Reilly/Strong's superb character development in PWG and how their run in that promotion is arguably more important in the long term than their respective ROH tenures, but I didn't want to come across as 100% indy wank fodder. The reason I still bring up people molding together all the indies into a generic 'ROH' term is mainly due to my own experience talking to fans at shows. Even recently at NOLA 'Mania weekend, where I got chatting to another bloke from England, I asked him if he was hitting up Joey Janela's Spring Break and he responded "Is that some Ring Of Honor show or something?". ROH is in a bubble these days and they have a very committed fan base, they just don't appear to be very vocal about it. That and their handling of talent and who they they think is worth the ticket price is very different compared to even 6 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyattSheepMask Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 Take a shot every time they mention Johnny Gargano & Candice LaRae are married Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted April 26, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 26, 2018 To me Ring of Honor is almost a slur for vanilla midgets and skinny flippy idiots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted April 26, 2018 Awards Moderator Share Posted April 26, 2018 (edited) I don’t know how the execution of Nia Jax and Alexa Bliss came across on Raw for comparison, but that segment with Shayna and Dakota was an incredibly effective depiction of bullying for me. I got this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’ve only felt in the presence of bullies like that. Great/awful stuff. Edited April 26, 2018 by HarmonicGenerator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TildeGuy~! Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, HarmonicGenerator said: I don’t know how the execution of Nia Jax and Alexa Bliss came across on Raw for comparison, but that segment with Shayna and Dakota was an incredibly effective depiction of bullying for me. I got this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’ve only felt in the presence of bullies like that. Great/awful stuff. I saw a thumbnail on WWE’s YouTube page this morning for that segment and was planning on watching it later but it now seems to have been taken down. Edit: Just watched it elsewhere, Dakota Kai plays being bullied really well, she genuinely looks scared whenever Shayna is in her presence, if they can get the crowd behind the feud imagine the pop Dakota will get when she finally fights back. Edited April 26, 2018 by TildeGuy~! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dart Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 Dakota Kai is definately gonna be the next Bayley, if there is such a thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members mim731 Posted April 26, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 26, 2018 Judging by the Raw thread, that's not necessarily a positive thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Statto Posted April 26, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 26, 2018 So presuming the ending of this week’s show was Black literally kicking Sanity out of NXT, guessing they are headed to Smackdown as heels? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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