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Tony Khan Buys ROH


WyattSheepMask

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4/27

Athena vs Lady Frost was my favourite bit of the show, naturally. More competitive than some of Athena's eliminator matches. Athena still largely in control but kept getting hit by unexpected haymakers from Frost (including a beautiful sky twister press) to keep things interesting. Athena segment is guaranteed to deliver. Guaranteed. 

The Kingdom promo and vignette barrage was good stuff. To be honest it did feel like someone had found a season's worth of Kingdom character and story development that they'd forgotten to air and then put it all out at once. However, I can't complain when they don't do this stuff and then complain when they do it. Certainly better late than never, but please just pepper these into every show as the stories develop from now on. 

Rush/Vance vs Infantry was a complete waste of RUSH. Again, I don't think Preston Vance in LFI works. I'm not sure I think Preston Vance works at all. Ice cold squash match, crowd dead for Preston Vance's heat. Thankfully they let Rush finish it off to wake everyone up. The Infantry are soooo duulll. 

Best Friends squash was on screen for a few minutes there. It suuure was... 

Cage/Ruffin was mildly entertaining filler. Cage isn't very good at squashes for such a large man, but Ruffin is an above average squashee which made it better.

Dark Order/Trustbusters was OK. Sonny Kiss is fun. I am still intrigued by The Righteous. I'll take any sort of direction and story progression on this show and the Dark Order are obviously a perfect fit for them. 

Skye Blue vs Diamante was one of Skye Blue's better outings. Still some iffy moments at the beginning, but as it got going all the big stuff landed and they had the crowd by the end. Probably a very backhanded compliment but Diamante is extremely reliable. I think she's an ideal opponent for Skye Blue if they want her to go a bit longer. She has barely had any speaking time and never has any sort of story or direction, but she clearly knows what she's doing and you don't see her matches derail even when she's in there with very green opponents. Will Skye Blue escape the title belt head bop? 

Moriarty vs Romero was good fun but a bit frustrating. I get that it's on brand for ROH to put out matches simply because on paper they seem like they'll be good, but Moriarty has had these two back to back competitive matches against notable opponents and has no direction whatsoever. It's still a weekly TV show, so it feels like a waste that they did it for no reason. 

You could have Moriarty say he wants a shot at Shibata and challenge these guys to Pure Rules matches so there's a bit of a throughline between the matches. You could have Trent Beretta come out and get in Big Bill's face for interfering in the match and then do Best Friends vs Bill/Moriarty or Roppongi Vice vs Bill/Moriarty on a future episode. Not trying to fantasy book and say I wanted either of those directions specifically, but those tag matches are the sort of thing that will be on an episode in future with zero reason behind them. 

I reeeeally struggle to not fast forward Blake Christian's matches. I'm sure this was a fun sprint and they did some nutty spots when I skimmed through it, but I am almost physically unable to sit through a Blake Christian maatch. He can do a lot of cool stuff, the crowds seem to like him and he is a fine underdog, but he is also a bland promo, looks like a backyarder and just does not appeal to me in any way at all. 

Despite a lot of grumbling there I thought this was a much better watch than the previous one. Fewer matches, shorter run time, Athena was a blast, Diamante vs Skye Blue was perfectly fine. Nothing outstayed its welcome and, most importantly of all, effort was made to do some character development and story progression. ly

As I've said before, I want this show to land in a sweet spot between Dark and Dynamite ideally, somewhere close to NXT black and gold when it was at its best. Not in terms of quality necessarily but in terms of the balance between matches and nice, simple pro wrestling storytelling. Last week's episode felt Elevation-esque at times, which was fine for that show (I watched pretty much every Elevation) but this one is on a paid subscription service and should offer more. This week's was a bit closer to the vibe I'm looking for. 

Packahges, vignettes, short and sweet backstage promos, and just some throughline between the matches from week to week. No reason why the guys having the 7-10 minute matches can't still have rivalries/reasons to fight. No reason why even the 2 minute squashes can't achieve something for the characters, as Athena has evidenced countless times by now. 

 Overall a step in the right direction despite my many complaints. :) 

Edited by JLM
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Ha! Just started the next episode and it’s Rocky Romero vs Lee Moriarty in a pure rules match because of Big Bill’s interference the previous week. I am Tony Khan. 

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04/05/23

YES!  This episode felt like someone read my review of the last one and responded to it directly. This is exactly what I was looking for. 

Rocky Romero vs Lee Moriarty. Oh my word a feud is happening. Solid opener, I liked Romero exhausting the rope breaks as urgently as possible. Big Bill interfering anyway was a bit silly. People can still cheat and interfere in Pure Rules despite the stipulation I guess, but just doing the standard "pull the leg while the ref's back turned" schtick is a bit cheap when this stipulation is supposed to explicitly prevent that. And he lost anyway! The idea was presumably that in a pure rules setting Romero was able to out-wrestle him, but then they just did the same shenanigans as last week regardless. 

Still, it was a match built from a previous one and these two have good chemistry, so ultimately I'm on board with it. 

Athena vs Angelica Risk. Another Athena slobberknocker. Code of Honor straight into pie face and then the aggression never let up. Vicious, vicious offense. The wheel barrow into face buster, the kicks. Liked the three amigos style triple shoulder slam thing too.  Some great fire from Angelica Risk who was another very game opponent for Athena. Favourite Athena bit here was a fan yelling "I LOVE YOU ATHEEEEENAAA" repeatedly until she snapped and went "I KNOW!!!" right in his face. Obviously you love me but shut up when I'm on screen. Terrorising the ref for daring to try and enforce the rules was also great. Then post-match she hits Skye Blue's finish and calls her out. Two for Two on matches with story progression! They're doing it! It's happening! Also Caprice and Ian are harping on the 10 minute time limit thing more frequently now. I really hope they have a jobber survive for ten mins at some point to get the shot. 

Joe vs Daniels was another short and sweet defense for Joe. Think it's pretty cool having him go through his fellow ROH legends to rack up some defenses. These two could have a solid TV match with each other in their sleep. This was also set up by a promo last week from Daniels, so this is now three for three. Good stuff. 

Claudio vs Robbie Eagles was a little belter of a match. Commentators explained who Robbie Eagles is and why I should care, which is appreciated. He came in with a clear gameplan and I thought it was one of the more believable cases of a speedy junior heavyweight sticking and moving against a bigger opponent. He is so quick and snappy with all of the low dropkicks and knee based offense that it looked plausible for him to be rocking Claudio for a bit. Really enjoyed that one.

Skye Blue Promo! Could have done with being about half as long. Lost her thread and babbled a bit due to nerves ("just to assert your supposed dominance that you clearly don't have" - what?)  but ended up hitting the key points and sounding fine by the end. Much like her in-ring it is still raw and needs work, but the point is they actually had her do it, and they interspersed some clips of Athena's antics to highlight what she was talking about.

Best Friends/Andretti/Darius/Grayson vs Varsity Athletes/Kingdom. This is a filler match I can get behind. Nice and short, fun high spots, kept things moving. Thought this was a far better way to get this lot on the show than any other combination of them in a singles or 2 vs 2 that would honestly have bored me senseless. This was a blast and they also did more story things! Stu is getting distracted by The Righteous. Probably would have made more sense for his team to lose, as he got distracted and taken out of the match only for his team to win anyway. The result makes more sense based on the backstage thing later though, so I'll allow it. 

Another strong promo from Athena to further the Skye Blue thing. Multiple segments throughout the show building up a future match. Yes! 

Preston Vance squash. Jobber bumped like the maddest of lads for this. Still a bit flat. Preston Vance please prove me wrong, right now I don't see it. 

Kingdom beatdown of Darius/Andretti.  This was great! Good and violent backstage assault. Bennett pretending to call Dante mid-beatdown was a wonderful touch. Loved this! 

Skye blue vs Robyn Renegade. Short and sweet. This was by far the best performance I've seen from either Renegade twin. Looked better than Skye in this one honestly. But yeah this was fine. Skye needed to win on the show after all the Athena stuff. 

Brian Cage vs Brock Anderson. Liked this on paper more than the other Cage squashes simply because it was a beefier battle. I actually quite liked some of the meat slapping hossery, but Brock Anderson is really not great. Still awkward but mostly just lacks any sort of presence or physical charisma. Also one spot where Cage caught a kick and Brock just fell down on his bum bum was incredibly awkward. Too short to be actively bad, but it was.... not good. I hadn't heard Cage say "Who better than Cage?" before. That (and all of his Mortis-themed gear) is a lovely tribute to his trainer. 

Willow vs Steph De Lander is a match I'd like to see for real somewhere down the line. Willow against a bigger opponent was very refreshing and they had strong chemistry here. Liked this a lot more than the other Willow showcase matches. She works better when dealing with adversity, so squash matches don't really suit her. The solution is making sure the jobber is a giant! 

Angelico vs Komander. I like Angelico. I'm a sucker for super contrived llave submissions. This was fine. Komander did all of his mad shit. I've seen it now though. Spanish Announce Project theme replacing Angelico's banging theme song is a fucking travesty. Fun little spotfest.

This is the show I want to see! Couple of exhibition/filler matches but they were either interesting enough or kept short enough to find a place on the show and, crucially, they were there for a bit of variety as supporting acts on a show that was primarily concerned with doing literally everything I've complained about them NOT doing. Easily my favourite episode of this so far. Loved it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by JLM
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Loving your notes JLM, agree with pretty much the lot. 

4/5/23

👍 Athena/Risk - Athena's just bloody superb isn't she? Every week she's consistently been the best part of ROH TV. Although I've no issue with talent appearing on both AEW and ROH's output, she does feel very much like a unique performer that's more or less exclusive to ROH and as a result you've got a talent that people are genuinely excited to tune in and watch each week. Everything she does is great, from the execution of the moves to the way she barks at the crowd and how she works the camera. A real star in this women's title run and long may it continue. 

👍 Komander/Angelico - A mad flippy banger. Komander gets some stick but his stuff is just absolutely mesmerising to watch. They could do a lot worse than keep more of the lucha matches on ROH's output as it could become a unique selling point for the brand, especially if you make it a bit rarer on Dynamite's output. Orange Cassidy and Bandido making the save was a welcome surprise and I welcome any combinations of singles or tag matches that comes from this development. 

👍 Claudio/Eagles - A smasher of a bout. We know Claudio's talents but I was very impressed with Eagles - bags of energy and an exciting talent to watch. Despite the action being great, it seems a bit mad to me that you'd have your World champion work the fourth match of the show, let alone the fourth match of the show be a World title match? Might be something to do with how the taping schedule was on the night in relation to Claudio's work in AEW or the order in which items were recorded. Still, top action

👍 Joe/Daniels - A fun throwback from two key pillars of ROH's history. Only a short and sweet encounter this around, but still fun to watch all the same even if there wasn't a real sense of jeopardy involved in this particular title defence. 

👍 Ten man tag - Chaotic in the best possible way. Two nice bits of angle advancement coming from this too - The Righteous continuing to court Stu Grayson is bubbling nicely, and of course the vicious backstage attack afterwards from The Kingdom. 

👎 Romero/Moriarty - They were clearly going for an outside-the-box approach when it comes to the Pure Rules element and the finish suggests to me that we'll get a third match before long. Solid enough but too similar to last week and their approach to the Pure Rules and Big Bill's presence arguably created more confusion than anything else. 

👎 Vance/Cage squashes - Neither of these did anything for me. Nothing against any of the talents involved, but with Cage in particular I've seen the same squash match a few times recently and it hasn't actually led anywhere, i.e challenging a singles champion, cutting promos about demanding better competition, etc etc. Time for something different, please. 

👎 Sky Blue/Renegade - I want to get behind Sky Blue and I think there's bags of potential there. Right now though in the wider women's wrestling landscape, there are more polished in ring performers to watch across the different companies and I'm not buying her as a challenger to Athena. However, the match with Athena is something I have high hopes for, mainly because of the abilities of the champion to take a programme and match like this and make it something special, so we'll see how it all plays out. 

👎 Willow/De Lander - Agree entirely with JLM in that they had good chemistry. My only gripe is that similar with other ROH regulars, the regular 3-minute Willow bouts each week are getting a bit repetitive now, and unlike Athena I'm not seeing a huge amount of variety with each performance. That's not a knock on Willow at all by the way - it's more to do with the time she gets allotted each week. It's a lot easier for a talent like Athena to elicit a more varied output with more minutes to play with. Still, big fan of Willow and I think she'll go on to great things. 

Overall - More fine action this week and a great deal of angle/storyline progression which made for a far better mix this week. A bit too much repetition in some of the booking patterns with certain performers, but otherwise another enjoyable ROH TV episode. 

Edited by Fatty Facesitter
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I think we’re the only two people watching ROH haha. Always look forward to your write up too sir.
 

Agreed that Skye Blue surely isn’t winning. Athena will have to carry it but the match up is perfect. Diminutive squeaky clean babyface against Athena in this mood. All Skye Blue needs to do is survive for a reasonable length of time and have a couple of big hole spots. First time I find myself looking forward to a Skye Blue match, I hope she can raise her game and pull it off. 

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8 hours ago, JLM said:

I think we’re the only two people watching ROH haha.

I'm watching! Ive just found the past couple of weeks really dull. It's essentially replaced Dark/Elevation but while it has more going on than those shows in terms of angles and storylines, it lacks the charm of them.

I think what is hindering the show is that there isn't a ROH PPV/big show on the horizon so everything just feels like it is trudging on with no endgame in sight. They could do with having a Takeover-esque event every 6 weeks or so, not only to give the product some direction but also to make HonorClub members feel like they're getting a bit more value for money.

Hopefully the Willow squashes are just to keep her warm until they do Athena/Willow again. One of my matches of the year so far and I still think Willow is the right choice to dethrone the champ.

Edited by Lorne Malvo
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I thought this weeks show was a massive improvement. Not as many matches for matches sake, everything either furthered a storyline or was there to keep guys momentum up. 

The only exceptions were the Renegades/Vertvixen match (Khan obviously sees something in the Renegades as they get featured fairly often on ROH and Dark/Elevation (RIP) but I've got no idea what it is that he sees) and Hendry vs AR Fox (I don't mind repeated kickouts from big moves as much as some, but kicking out of numerous piledrivers/brainbusters then hitting spanish flys a minute later during a mid-card match on a ROH weekly show is a bit much). Some shoddy editing also robbed us of a Eddie Kingston promo which is unforgiveable really. 

Athena is just the best. Gave Skye Blue her best outing by a country mile, always comes across as a killer, shes the complete package right now. Whens Statlander back? Athena vs Statlander would be an absolute banger.

Samoa Joe vs Blake Christian was a masterclass in how to make your opponent shine while still coming across as a dominant champion. Joe gave Christian just the right amount of offence, then shuts him down with the Muscle Buster as soon as he can. The perfect way to book this kind of match. I mention it everytime I see him, but as good as Blake Christian is I still can't fully get behind someone who looks like George Costanza's dad.

Hopefully the good shows continue and are more coherent week to week from now on.

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18/5/23

Overall - Wow, @Lorne Malvo called it perfectly - A massive improvement and an absolutely bloody delightful watch for large portions. Huge amount to like about this particular show and definitely the best ROH TV episode I’ve watched since I started these reviews a few weeks back. Also there was much more storyline advancement combined with an excellent in-ring standard. 

👍 First, a word on the general atmosphere because I thought it was absolutely superb. It wasn’t the loudest crowd ever but the more intimate setting really added to the overall aesthetics - you could hear the trash talking and insults so loudly and that added a greater degree of intrigue to the proceedings. Keep ROH in these more condensed settings because it’s such a unique part of their identity and it separates it from the sort of AEW setting to really excentuate the  differentiation. Lovely stuff. 

👍 Also, I’m not sure what Ian Riccaboni and Caprice had for breakfast that day but it was probably a fry up - they were absolutely full of beans and made several matches a seriously fun experience by adding a huge amount of passion, excitement, energy and also urgency. 

👍 Shane Taylor/Mark Briscoe - A belting opener. Taylor talking shit to Briscoe right at the start was great. Briscoe’s continuing to have banger after banger in both ROH and AEW presently. 

👍 Athena/Sky Blue - I call this type of match a Dua Lipa special - because it’s like they said to each other before going out “Come on (come on), come on (come on) come on, let’s get physical).” @JLM and I probably sound like broken records every week but Athena is just in fantastic form at the moment and it’s no coincidence that she was in the main event - totally deserved. Sky Blue will have learned a lot from this one - really put in a serious shift and even if the execution wasn’t always polished, she seriously stepped up. Athena sold her comebacks with great facial expressions and the whole thing was just great. 

👍 TV title - Completely agree with Lorene Malvo’s assessment, superb work from both. My only grumble? Too short - but not to the detriment of the match, it’s purely for a selfish desire to see them go at it for longer!

👍 Ninja/Willie - A Mack derby! This had me grinning from ear to ear - thoroughly enjoyable bout. Couldn’t help but think both men sharing the same surname would exactly the sort of thing that would cause Vince McMahon and WWE top brass to burst a blood vessel. 

👍 Fletcher/Deppen - Explosive pace down the stretch. 

👍 Dark Order/Varsity Athletes - Smashing 8-man tag with the added intrigue of the Stu Grayson factor. Lots of good spots in this match centred around the deliberate tension and miscommunication. 

👍 Dutch’s tongue taunt is both creepy and impressive. Liking the tension around Stu Grayson possibly joining them. 

👎 AR Fox/Anthony Hendry - They were really pushing the resilience factor with Fox, and to an extent it worked because the crowd really got behind him. But it was just far too congested although they put in a lot of effort, it lacked suspension of disbelief at times and became too much of a stunt show. Waste of an FTR cameo too. 

👎 Righteous/Infantry - Nothing memorable, easy skip (but still a good backdrop for the Grayson angle). 

👎 Renegade/Vertvixen - Skip-a-dee-do dah…

👎 Mogul Embassy squash - Skip-a-dee-yay.

👎 Claudio’s your world champion and you’re sticking him second on the show and as part of a feud for the tag straps? Come on TK, look after my Swiss Superman. 

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6 minutes ago, Fatty Facesitter said:

 

👍 Also, I’m not sure what Ian Riccaboni and Caprice had for breakfast that day but it was probably a fry up - they were absolutely full of beans and made several matches a seriously fun experience by adding a huge amount of passion, excitement, energy and also urgency. 

 

I actually think Nigel McGuinness is a hindrance to their commentary team. The past 30+ years of US pro wrestling has reinforced the idea that one of your commentators has got to be a knob, so Caprice and Riccaboni being such great friends who just seem to have a huge amount of love and respect for each other was such a refreshing change. Nigel McGuinness coming in now with his sub-Corey Graves shtick just isn't neccesary. 

Riccaboni and Caprice rapping over Willows theme always gets a smile out of me.

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Riccaboni and Caprice are the biggest draw in ROH in 2023. I haven’t watched ROH TV since it came back, but their work on the pay per views is the only thing that makes me feel like I’m missing out. They’re a phenomenal team. Infectious happiness. Them dancing to Willow’s music remains the highlight of Wrestlemania weekend.

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This week was quite hit and miss, I thought. Some really good matches, but jesus christ there was a LOT of filler. 

The opener was a cracker, and this new ROH/AEW lucha division they're establishing is giving me serious WCW Crusierweight vibes. 

Willow vs Madi was good even if it was quite short, but I'm quite biased as I love Wrenkowski solely based on her being a pandemic-era Dark mainstay. It's the same reason I always keep an eye out for guys like M'Badu to show up. God I miss pandemic-era Dark.

ZSJ vs AR Fox was a nice change of pace, and I'm well up for Zack's technical prowess taking on Joe's monster in the near future. The less said about Sydal's involvement, the better.

I'm quite enjoying this Dalton Castle/Embassy storyline over the past few weeks. Dalton really knows how to get that crowd behind him. I actually think he might benefit from a slight gimmick change and dumping the Boys going forwards.

Fucking hell, that main event was much more mental than I expected. Starting off with Mike Bennett lashing a chair into Darius's face and didn't really let up from there. Bennett popping Maria with the forearm got a legitimate 'fucking hell!' out of me. I feel like it was the wrong result as I reckon the Kingdom have much more mileage as a tagteam in ROH than Top Flight 2.0 do, but other than that it was a really good main event.

The problem with this week's show is that in addition to all of the above, there was about another 8 matches that were just... there. If they can tighten the show up a little and give matches like Lady Frost vs Alize a storyline reason for happening then I'd be a very happy customer (not that I pay...)

Lastly, the Iron Savages and their shite manager are tragic. Numerous moments in their match where they're playing to the crowd and it's just silent. I feel sorry for them but the act has been tweaked and changed so much over the past few years I think they've just lost the crowd.

Edited by Lorne Malvo
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Based on all the reviews here I've spent some time this week catching up with some Athena stuff. Fuck me what a revelation. That's exactly what ROH should be about. No problems at all with it existing if it allows people to develop and find themselves away from the pressures of the cluttered AEW main roster. She's now better than most of them over there!

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