Tony Khan Buys ROH

[JLM]

ROH 21/03/24

Skipped: Lee Johnson vs jobber, Matt Sydal vs jobber,

Women's TV Title Tournament semi final: Billie Starkz vs Mercedes Martinez

Enjoyed this one. Mercedes the more experienced veteran wrestling the whole match at her pace. Billie managing quick flurries of offense using a bit of high flying and striking, but mostly just staying alive in the match whilst being methodically broken down. Diamante also getting involved occasionally to stack the deck against Billie further. Starkz impresses me every time but Martinez was the star of this one. Dictated the whole thing, made you root for Starkz and gradually got more frustrated and less composed as it went on, ultimately leading up to the finish where she makes a crucial mistake out of frustration and loses. 

Just pure and simple good pro wrestling,

Women's TV Title Tournament semi final: Queen Aminata vs Red Velvet. 

This was a belter! Velvet vs Hirsch the other week was the best Red Velvet performance I could remember seeing, but she easily topped it here. Incredible chemistry between these two, Velvet a smaller opponent for Aminata to throw about the place in spectacular fashion, Aminata a perfect base for Velvet to show off her high flying skills. The quesadora into 180 spin round the back into a roll up was ridiculous. Classic big woman/little woman match up which ramped up the intensity as it went, Red Velvet taking more risks and busting out more violent and desperate offense as it went on, Aminata dominating for spells with high impact power moves and nasty strikes. 

Red Velvet has made a fan out of me during this tournament and Aminata is such an exciting prospect, who as @Lorne Malvo says, genuinely looks more and more impressive with each appearance. 

Kiera Hogan promo! Salty about losing to Diamante in the tournament, wants a rematch. Thought the line about seeing Diamante at home was fun. I don't think "if you don't give me a rematch you'll be getting the silent treatment when we get home" has been invoked in a promo before. Diamante promo in response too! As @Lorne Malvo says, the women's division in ROH is in a great place right now with a diverse and interesting roster, but my main criticism has been the limited promo and character work opportunities. So happy to see this improving. If Lady Frost gets a promo I'll have no criticisms left. The TV title tournament has also added the focus and stakes the division has been missing, it's improved the shows a lot for me. 

 

Bears EAT Boys.

Lexy was excellent in this one too. 

Hikaru Shida vs Rachel Ellering

This started off a bit flat but picked up some steam towards the end. Ellering is not over but they are working on it with her and Leyla Hirsch. I want Ellering to turn on Hirsch because I cannot get behind her as a babyface. 

This was more about Athena at ringside than the match. Athena is a bit rattled by Shida. I love that the commentators bring up the one time they faced before in 2014, and it's handy for this story that Shida won it. Athena also mentioned it in her backstage promo later. Similar to Nyla, she is going into a title defense not her usual ultra-confident self. 

Turns out their previous match is on Youtube by the way, was pretty good: 

 

Brilliant promo from Kingston:

 

Makes a lot of sense for him to need a re-think after Okada. Perfect opponent for it too. That's gonna be a good'un. 

Mina Shirakawa vs Anna Jay

Fantastic debut from Shirakawa. Brimming with charisma, got the crowd on board immediately. Anna Jay could do worse than getting matches in against whoever else from Stardom comes over, thought this was one of her better performances too. But yeah, Shirakawa an immediate hit, absolutely delightful pinning combination too. 

Thought this was sweet too. What a huge win for Mariah May that some of her best pals she's just had to leave when moving from Japan will now be popping over to her new job: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C4eY39yJYSp/

Very good episode this week. Only two skips, plenty of promos, Dalton vs The TVs update, two quality TV title tourney matches and a great fun debut for Shirakawa. All wrapped up in a nice digestible 70 minute run time. 

 

 

Edited March 26 by JLM

[Supremo]

Wasn’t going to bother with last night’s show. There’s too much stuff to watch and still have a relatively normal human existence.

Saw this though. Fucking hell. Floods of tears. I think he’s the best babyface in the business today.

 

[WyattSheepMask]

Seen a lot of backlash from them doing a fake injury angle in the Billie Starks/Queen Animata match.

I don’t know if people are annoyed that they did it in the first place or just that they bought it.

[Jesse]

I can't stand the type that go on for ages, with doctors coming out etc. It absolutely kills the match dead for me, with a minute or two effectively waiting, you move from the immediate emotional reaction/shock and into a kind of standby that I find it really hard to be drawn back out of. So the reaction it gets isn't "Oh what a dastardly prick that fooled me" so much as an "Oh, it was an act and now the match is happening again"

I'd far prefer a much faster version of it, begging off with an injury to get the ref to intervene and then within 20-30s using that to get in a cheap shot or just break the momentum. It fits more with the fair narrative of a match too, you're telling me that the ref has called the doctors out for what they believe is a real injury but they haven't called off the match?

Can't recall one like this that has hit for me, even beyond the idea of it being in bad taste.

[King Mal the Glorious]

7 hours ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Seen a lot of backlash from them doing a fake injury angle in the Billie Starks/Queen Animata match.

I don’t know if people are annoyed that they did it in the first place or just that they bought it.

I'm going to say it's because they bought it. I did and I don't think I've fallen for a fake injury angle in my life, it was so well done.

[WyattSheepMask]

9 hours ago, King Mal the Glorious said:

I'm going to say it's because they bought it. I did and I don't think I've fallen for a fake injury angle in my life, it was so well done.

I’m in two minds about it.

Im not against injury angles per se, if it’s done well it can really add to a match and if the crowd buy it then it achieved its goal. However, doing it 3 days after NXT had to stop a match due to a legitimate injury (to Joe Gacy who smacked the back of his head on the mat and knocked himself out, although he was cleared soon afterwards ) is probably more of an issue, which could either be looked as just being poor timing or somebody just didn’t think of how it could look. 
The other thing is withit being a perceived neck injury. I don’t mean to sound like one of WWE’s ‘Don’t Try This At Home’ ads, but wrestlers run that sort of risk of injury every time they get in the ring, and one wrong move could be the end of your career, or worse in the case of a neck injury. I got a stinger when I played Sunday Rugby League and couldn’t feel my hands for 45 minutes. It was legitimately the most scared I’ve ever felt in my life, and pretending to have a neck injury just doesn’t sit right, at least it doesn’t with me

i don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into it. 

Edited April 7 by WyattSheepMask

[SuperBacon]

I saw a clip of it last night and I hated it, but then I hate every single usage of that trope. 

[JLM]

ROH 28/03/24

Skipped Griff Garrison and Koal Qatar vs jobbers, Brandon Cutler and Colt Cabana vs Jobbers, Top Flight vs Jobbers, Blake Christian vs Kyle Fletcher. 

Standard PPV build angle to open. Athena kills a jobber, post-match jobber beatdown longer and more violent than usual, prompting Shida to run out and make the save. Very simple build for this title match but I'm looking forward to it. 

Lee Johnson had another go at a promo. It was not good. He was trying to liven up the delivery a bit but he is devastatingly dull. 

Nick Comoroto vs Dalton Castle

Woooah Nick Comoroto looks wrong without a beard. He, like Dalton, has lost his mojo and is acting a bit weird. No Jacoby Watts this week but the commentators suggest Comoroto is still under his influence. 

Very short match, highlighted by Dalton hitting a massive deadlift german suplex. I love how Dalton's character continues to evolve. He's doing the full entrance with the single use disposable back up Boys and he has a fresh jumpsuit, but he also has soaking wet hair and goes into unhinged fits of rage at the slightest provocation. He is trying to pretend he is OK but he is definitely not OK. 

Post match Taya cut another hilarious promo. I love her in this feud so much. The actual on-screen explanation to write off The Boys is that Mr. and Mrs. TV lost them in the woods and they may have been eaten by bears. Incredible. Taya says that the original boys were Bad Boys because Dalton didn't raise them right, then Johnny TV jumps Dalton and the TVs kiss standing over his fallen body. If Dalton doesn't smash that man's face at Supercard of Honor there is no justice in this world. 

Wonderful video package for Briscoe/Kingston. Absolutely loved this: 

Kiera Hogan vs Diamante

This was an OK match but Kiera Hogan is just not over as a babyface. Crickets for her every time. She has had a few more chances to speak recently on the plus side. The TV title has added something for the women in this division to aim for but they still need some stories and rivalries outside of that. Hopefully the increased promo time they've been getting will continue to help with that. 

JD Drake vs Evil Uno

Was intrigued by this match up and I'm so glad I watched it. The crowd adores Uno, JD Drake responds with his textbook old school heel schtick and it means this ROH TV filler match actually has good heat throughout. They start off doing comedy but it ends up being a mad brawl with the two fat lads slapping and chopping and smashing into each other at a fast pace and with a ton of intensity. An unexpected highlight of the episode. 

Dalton stuff was great as always, Drake/Uno over-delivered massively, everything else entirely skippable. 

ROH 04/04/24 

Skipped: The Infantry vs The Kingdom. I saw they actually did the proving ground thing where The Infantry got a title shot via a time limit draw against the champs, but I just do not care to watch these two teams fighting to a time limit draw. Anna Jay vs Jobber, Evil Uno vs Jobber, Top Flight/Andretti vs Jack Cartwheel/Chris Daniels/Matt Sydal. 

Lee Johnson/Kyle Fletcher face off backstage. Lee Johnson's delivery is so flat. It's bad. I appreciate that they're using ROH as developmental here and getting behind a guy. He's a good looking guy and is very capable in-ring, but he needs a persona or a confidence boost or something. It's so bad:

Brilliant unhinged promo from Dalton. He is a peacock-phoenix hybrid. He will rise from the ashes like a PEANIX. He will destroy John TV at Supercard. 

Enjoyed Nick Comoroto vs Lee Johnson. I broke my streak of skipping Lee Johnson matches because I'm oddly intrigued by this Nick Comoroto/Jacoby Watts business. Also big man/little man. Never tire of it. Comoroto is such a big brutish oaf of a man. I feel like he's really leaning into it with this new character and I think it sets him apart on this roster. Jacoby Watts liked what he saw despite Johnson picking up another win for his streak. 

Later in the show they make it official. Watts definitely sounds the part:

Serpentico HILARIOUSLY tricks Kawl Kawter into signing a contract for a match. Garrison/Carter vs Angelico/Serpentico at Supercard Zero Hour. Gross.

Nyla Rose killed a jobber. Finished with a delightful Spicy Drop into cutter thing. 

Very slick promo video for the return of The Premier Athletes. 

Shida/Athena contract signing was a strong go home segment for both of the women's title matches at Supercard. Impressive that Shida can cut live promos entirely in English these days. Athena is scared of Shida, Shida knows it. Billie is full of self belief again and they keep sewing the seeds for her eventually taking another shot at Athena. Good little brawl to end it. Aminata's surprise headbutt spot looks great every time. 

Wonderful sitdown interview with Eddie and Mark Briscoe. Amazing that Supercard is on the anniversary of Jay Briscoe's first ROH World title win. Mark Briscoe doesn't need any more storyline motivation on top of that real one, so this was more about Eddie giving his side and it was excellent: 

 

Edited April 16 by JLM

[JLM]

ROH Supercard of Honor

Zero hour. Skipped: Premier Athletes vs Tony Deppen/Rhett Titus/Adam Priest, Garrison/Carter vs Angelico/Serpentico 

 
The Beast Mortos vs Blake Christian

Black Taurus returns at last! So happy about this. I think the new mask is an improvement. I want to see him vs every small flippy man on the roster immediately. Line them up. Thoroughly enjoyed this match. Christian might look like he smells of sour milk but he is consistently very good in-ring, and Taurus is the one of the best bases I have ever seen for flippy opponents. He can work just as fast as them, his offense looks fucking devastating against them, he enables them to do all of their best flippy things and also has the best counters to all flippy things. Komander coming out to challenge Mortos after the match made me very happy. If I don't get Mortos vs Jack Cartwheel on ROH TV I'll be very disappointed. 

Mariah May vs Momo Kohgo

Solid match. Kohgo was a good fiery underdog, Mariah the bully. Not surprising that one of Mariah's better in-ring performances under the AEW banner would be against someone from Stardom. 

ROH TV Title: Lee Johnson vs Kyle Fletcher

This was a pretty wild match. The fact that I didn't buy Johnson winning for a second detracted from it a bit though. As they continued to kick out of more and more improbable things, I found I hit near fall fatigue quite early. You can do this if a match could go either way or if people are very invested in the result/want the underdog to win etc. Here it felt more like two guys trying to have a five star epic when the stakes and circumstances didn't warrant it. 

Mina Shirakawa/Maika/Mei Seira vs AZM/Saya Kamitani/Tam Nakano

This was a lot of fun. It wasn't mindblowing and I've seen better Stardom matches, but still a strong showcase match. AZM and Mei doing the high speed exchanges was lovely. Saya Kamitani was an incredibly sympathetic weak link for her team, she sells being hit like death and was hobbling around like Bayley at Wrestlemania as Shirakawa went to work destroying her leg. Shirakwa was the star of the show. Tonnes of charisma but also drew great sympthy for Kamitani as she bulled her into submission. I'm really glad the Stardon roster is appearing in AEW, they have some amazing talents but I just don't have the time to watch their shows. 

The Infantry vs The Kingdom

Noooope. 

Billie Starkz vs Queen Aminata

Starkz seemed a little bit off with her timing at the start of this. Got much better as it went on though, turned into a good back and forth. All of Aminata's offense looks fantastic; incredibly explosive and snappy with everything she does. The injury angle was very well done and it was a very Athena thing to do. I continue enjoy the development of the Billie Starkz character. I did feel a bit uneasy about them doing it with a neck injury and having the commentators go all serious voice with it though. Nothing wrong with the good old fake knee injury. It's a heel classic and it doesn't make the audience concerned that they've just witnessed a life changing injury to one of the performers. The swerve itself and the follow up/finish were great though and got a tremendous reaction. Aminata looked utterly devastated. 

Bullet Club Gold vs Monster Sauce and Minoru Suzuki

Very unexpected surprise addition to the card. Suzuki was the highlight, calling Jay White a Young Boy, Austin Gunn an Ass Boy and generally delighting the crowd with his invincible Murder Grandpa schtick. Jay White was terrified of Suzuki for the whole match, so they built up Suzuki getting his hands on him. Alex Zayne is Lance Archer's regular tag partner in New Japan, he is the sauce to Archer’s monster. He does cool moves but he has no connection with the audience and has a horrendous look. An amusing, entertaining but unspectacular match.

Dalton Castle vs John Television:: FIGHT WITHOUT HONOUR

Tremendous video package for this match, highlighting one of the best feuds in wrestling that hardly anyone watched. Amazing entrance from Dalton. Brand new jump suit, substitute boys of all shapes and sizes, looking clean and well rested. Finally time to Smash Jonny TV. Johnny TV had some wild trash talk. Imagine being able to utter the line "you're mad 'cause your Boys are bear food, bitch!" and getting paid for it. 

I mostly loved this. Paul Walter Hauser making a surprise appearance and spending too much time prancing about to not much reaction was bad, but I enjoyed everything else about it. The long "Bring me a Boy" spot with all the spare boys running down was excellent. All building up to a giant superheavyweight boy not pulling off the suicide dive, only to be topped by Boy Cartwheel(!) hitting his beautiful space flying tiger drop. Taya getting carried off by The Boys after interfering throughout the match was also a great spot. 

Meltzer gave this one star and I've seen the reviewers on Cagematch absolutely seething over it too, but for me a completely silly comedy hardcore match was the only way to blow off this feud.  The live crowd was behind Dalton, booing Johnny and Taya, they reacted big for all the major spots and the win for Dalton at the end felt like a well earned triumph for him. 

The Lee Johnson/Kyle Fletcher match got 4.5 stars but was way less fun than this to me. 

Star ratings are silly. 

ROH Women's Title: Athena vs Hikaru Shida

Slightly clunky at the beginning until Athena settled nto attacking Shida's leg to take away her kicks. Built very well from there, a strong second half and a bloody brilliant closing stretch. The story of Athena doubting that she can beat Shida was well told throughout the match. After Shida's first really big kick out Athena looked like she was going to cry, a loud Shida chant started and Athena briefly looked around the audience almost pleading with them to chant for her instead. One great spot where an Athena powerbomb was countered into a 'rana over the ropes to the outside, but Athena held on and countered *that* into a powerbomb onto the floor. Match kicked into high gear after that and had some fantastic counters, teases and near falls. Took a little while to get going but ended up being very good. 

ROH World Title: Eddie Kingston vs Mark Briscoe

Briscoe entering to Gimme back my bullets was a lovely touch. This was superb as you'd expect. I was hoping the crowd would be hotter for Briscoe though. Eddie worked slightly heel and the people were behind Briscoe, but both men had to work quite hard to keep them into it. But yeah, a great match regardless. Briscoe incredibly sympathetic as ever, bleeding buckets and refusing to die. Eddie wrestling a more reckless and violent style as promised. Wonderful celebration after the match, ROH wrestlers past and present, streamers, papa Briscoe and the family all in the ring. I know the ROH titles aren't seen as valuable and many want ROH scrapped entirely, but this clearly meant a lot to Mark Briscoe personally and that was heartwarming to see. He really, really deserves it. 

This was a good show. Not a bad match on the card and I thoroughly enjoyed the main event and Athena/Shida. Dalton vs John TV was fun for the handful of us who have followed this feud. Nothing hit the heights of the absolute best stuff on the previous Tony Khan ROH PPVs. Definitely the least essential one of these so far but I still had a good time. 

Edited April 17 by JLM

[JLM]

ROH 11/04/24

Skipped: Action Andretti vs Isiah Cassidy. Good grief that's an unappealing match. Shane Taylor Promotions vs Jobbers, Nyla Rose vs Jobber, Caren Kartier vs CHristopher Daniels, Anna Jay vs jobber, Zak Knight vs jobber, Kyle fletcher vs Rhett Titus. I watched The Righteous kill jobbers because they do it with such panache, but other than that did not watch any of the matches. 

Lovely open to the show with Briscoe and Eddie all bsnged up after the supercard main event, talking about how they're gonna destroy House of Black at Dynasty. "We like each other and look what we just did to each other, what do you think we're gonna do to you?" Tremendous. 

Kingdom Promo with Wardlow. Taven and Bennett brag about how they beat The Infantry at Supercard all on their own. Wardlow interfered and won them that match, so he was giving them a lot of side eye. Is he finally going to start questioning the terrible, terrible career decisions he's made? He beat Joe and his next move is to help these scrubs defend the nothing tag titles. Come on buddy, you can work out what you need to do. I believe in you. 

Infantry promo. They're mad that Taven and Bennett didn't beat them at Supercard all on their own. They will bounce back. I cannot WAIT. 

Billie goes to meet her mum backstage at Supercard after winning the title. If you can power through Mrs. Starkz's acting, the ending made me laugh: 

https://x.com/DrainBamager/status/1776629309790359945

Bad acting aside I also thought this was a great addition to the Starkz/Athena story.

Lexy interviews Lee Johnson. It's not good. He amost stuck the landing on it though. He said the match at Supercard was a win for him because he got to show what he can do and he got a big opportunity based off his hard work etc. He closes saying "Even though I didn't win the title, I didn't lose". Perfectly fine summary of his promo. Then he goes "I won.. in some way". He was so close and then he Jumpin' Jeff Farmered the ending. 

Kyle Fletcher's promo was better in delivery but the content was baffling. He says Lee Johnson made the feud personal when he made jibes about Fletcher not turning up to work. Fletcher explains the real life reason for that; that he was kicked out of the country and had to renew his visa. He gets a bit choked up talking about it. Made Lee Johnson (the babyface he just beat!) seem like a real asshole for using that against him. 

Dalton Castle promo celebrating his win. Paul Walter Hauser is rubbish and made the whole thing worse. Dalton was great as usual. 

Mariah May and Mina Shirakawa celebrate their respective wins at Supercard. Mina gives Mariah a big kiss and tells her she was amazing, Mariah is clearly blown away, like she's forgotten how it feels for someone to be this nice to her. Lovely to see the genuine chemistry between these two, and Shirakawa did the whole thing in English too. 

This was mostly a Supercard fall out round up show, only took about 10 minutes to watch because I skipped all the matches. 

More importantly though, ROH Youtube channel has put up the complete Johnny TV/Dalton Castle saga in one massive video!! 

 

They need to change the title of this video and put it on the AEW main channel.

Edited April 17 by JLM