Tony Khan Buys ROH

[Merzbow]

52 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

Punk only hangs out with stars, not shite comedy wrestlers. 

Only just realizing that Dan was his Colt replacement.. i bet he has a new shite comedy mate in WWE.

[TheScarlettChad]

4 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

Only just realizing that Dan was his Colt replacement.. i bet he has a new shite comedy mate in WWE.

I wonder who? Truth?

[Supremo]

[RedTwoster]

Fuck me, without spoiling the show, Jericho vs Cardona might be the worst match ever put on under the AEW/ROH banner. There’s recency bias are some which are so bad they become entertaining - this is not that. Jericho is gradually undoing all of the good work he did to build up AEW during its early years with his current run. I’m amazed that Jericho’s professional pride allows him to go out and wrestle matches this awful on a regular basis. 

[DavidB6937]

I'd be more upset over the shit Jericho match if I wasn't more upset over the Athena match. Damnit they'd built it up so well to a logical conclusion and.. nope.

[RedTwoster]

5 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

I'd be more upset over the shit Jericho match if I wasn't more upset over the Athena match. Damnit they'd built it up so well to a logical conclusion and.. nope.

I’m wary of saying too much in case I spoil the show for someone - but at least that’s was in contention for match of the night, and the standards was - on the whole - high throughout the show. I don’t necessarily mind the result if they have a plan in mind that involves Athena finally moving up to the main roster.

[DavidB6937]

16 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

I’m wary of saying too much in case I spoil the show for someone - but at least that’s was in contention for match of the night, and the standards was - on the whole - high throughout the show. I don’t necessarily mind the result if they have a plan in mind that involves Athena finally moving up to the main roster.

I thought that'd be on the cards as I don't feel like there's much left for her in ROH which is why I was expecting a different result. Just would've made sense from a storyline buildup perspective AND there not really being much left for Athena. I guess we'll see what happens but it was disappointing. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

It’s still real to him damn it! 

 

 

and it’s quite sweet

[DavidB6937]

Blimey. Good job he didn't win a big belt. They'd still be crying now. Bless.

[Lorne Malvo]

Harley Cameron fans - she finally got a win on this weeks ROH! I think she'll be given a lot to do this year.

ROH has a really good womens division but they're just not given anything to do on the weekly show. Like the rest of ROH, it's just meaningless matches with no developments or actual angles. 

This probably says a lot about me psychologically but I'm very attracted to Red Velvet now she's a heel. 

2025 and Iron Savages are still a thing. Fucks sake.

This weeks classic match was Athena vs Willow from DBD 2023, which was a nice reminder of when Athena was the best womens wrestler in the world before her title run got bogged down with this awful minions/Starkz stuff (which has been going on for about 18 months now).

My prediction for ROH this year is that they won't get a TV deal and will trundle on being the complete nothing promotion they are.

[JLM]

OK we have trawled the backlog all the way up to Final Battle at last. It hasn't taken that long in truth as I still skip massive chunks of every episode. 

03/10/24

Spoiler

 

80 minute run time. Better.

Skipped:

Dustin/Von Erichs vs Premier Athletes. If we're not in Texas I'm not watching the Von Erich kids. 
Nyla Rose vs Jobber
Anthony Henry and BEEF vs Jobbers

Minion meeting. Athena and Lexy blaming Billie for everything, Billie standing up for herself a bit more each time. I enjoy Lexy in these segments. Athena celebration next week with the entire women's roster forced to attend. 

Infantry vs Outrunners. Very short but fine tag match. Funny to see how the Outrunners have deservedly leapfrogged The Infantry and are now clear favourites in a match like this. 

Then as Lorne Malvo mentioned, they showed Kobashi vs Joe. What a belter. Can't believe they had Ian and Caprice talk over the entrances with the audio muted. One of the coolest things about the match is Kobashi's genuine surprise at the thunderous babyface reaction he gets coming through the curtain, so cutting the audio of that for this replay was a bad call. Other than that though they did a great job adding some trivia/history notes, and the match is of course a classic. 

Solid main event from Briscoe and Taven. They have consistently good chemistry. 

Nothing much going on here. Joe/Kobashi the best bit, obviously. 

10/10/24

Spoiler

Nearly two hour run time. Worse. 

Skipped:

Brandon Cutler vs Shibata
Billie Starkz vs jobber
Shane Taylor Promotions vs The Infantry
Lance Archer vs jobber

Another minion meeting. Man Starkz vs Athena is a longer story than Cody's. They did a really good job building up her first title challenge. The match was great too. I didn't even mind her losing with the story being that she wasn't QUITE there yet but would get her next time. The reset of Billie back into a minion so they can slooooowly turn her back babyface and build up to the rematch has been a slog though. On the plus side, Lady Frost appeared and actually said some words out of her mouth like a person who can talk. Also Athena accidentally challenging Frost to a proving ground match was a pretty funny and novel way to set it up.

NJPW NEVER Openweight title: Anthony Henry vs Gabe Kidd

This was pretty good! Well matched opponents in terms of style and physicality, and Kidd's antics (attacking BEEF, cutting a promo mid-match) brought some great babyface fire out of Henry. 

Dark Order promo. Uno says they're getting back into trios action. Then Jacked Jameson and the Iron Savages turned up so I skipped the rest of it. I hate them all so very, very much. 

ROH Women's TV Title: Red Velvet vs Diamante

Solid match this. The women's division is definitely one of the main reasons I still bother with ROH. Interesting story to this match here too. Diamante basically dominated for the duration. Had counters to every Velvet signature move and hope spot so the whole match was just an extended ass kicking of Velvet. Then Diamante hit Velvet with the TV title for no reason and got disqualified. Normally I would hate this finish but I actually kind of liked how they did it here. Almost like Diamante couldn't help herself in a similar vein to RUSH, where the love of beating someone down transcended all rationale. She was having too much fun and got carried away. She snapped out of it as soon as the decision was announced and then looked devastated. Didn't attack Velvet or the ref etc. as heels sometimes do in this situation, just looked annoyed at herself for throwing away the opportunity. Interested to see where that goes. 

Shane Taylor yells at The Infantry and invites them and Trish Adora to join STP. 

Danielson vs KENTA the classic match of the week. Absolute masterpiece between two guys who could not be more perfect opponents. Violent, intense, great sense of struggle for the duration and it builds to a white hot closing stretch. Can't beat an injured Danielson against an opponent with the tools and know-how to target it. In this case KENTA trying to shatter his arm for the whole thing and Danielson trying to fight without it for most of the match. Danielson's foot on the ropes making him the first man to survive a GTS is such a magical near fall. Unbelievable match. 

Another solid TV match from Mark Briscoe to close the show, this time against Josh Woods. 

Good amount of skippable filler as usual, but three good TV matches and a classic from KENTA and Danielson. Not bad. 

17/10/24

Spoiler

Two hours again. Booo. 

Skipped:

Angelico and Serpentico vs Jobbers
Nick Wayne vs Jobber
Atlantis Jr. vs John Cruz

Wonderful promo from Mark Briscoe following his ROH title defense against Jericho at Wrestledream. He says he'll whup Chris Jericho on any and all AEW shows, including Hey EW and that show where they be cookin' and shit. Tremendous. 

Rachel Ellering promo interrupted by Harley Cameron who is, of course, the best. Only issue for Ellering is that Cameron as the heel is waaaay more likeable and entertaining. Hopefully pairing this will get something out of Ellering eventually. 

Yuka Sakazaki vs Viva Van 

Yuka always gets the crowd 100% behind her even in a nothing match like this. Viva Van has looked good in her AEW appearances throughout 2024, so was a shame to see her slip on a springboard attempt here and bail quite badly. Other than that this was a fine semi-squash.

Brian Cage promo. Says the TV title win is the push he needs to start the Age of Cage. Ties it in to an Olympic high diving metaphor. I suppose he is not technically a great promo but he does promos exactly how a giant 80s-esque muscleman pro wrestler should. Loud, brash and scatterbrained, so ultimately I'm a fan. 

MXM vs Midnight Heat. 

MXM so good that I'll watch their jobber match. Midnight Heat did a Russian leg sweep/back stabber double team that I've never seen before. MXM did their usual fun stuff. I love that Madden gives Summer Rae a shout out every match when he does her move.

Jack Cartwheel vs AR Fox

This was a delightful spotfest. Cartwheel looking more shredded than in previous appearances, though also sporting the dreaded Adam Cole jaundice tan. But yeah, these two did lots of great fancy moves at each other, also some fun back and forth sequences with their signature spots meshing together in creative ways. Fox also did a snap superplex! Never seen that before. Crazy with all the wrasslin' I have consumed that I still see new stuff fairly routinely. Very cool. 

Willie Mack vs Komander

I loved this. Willie Mack is great against luchadores as he can be the powerhouse but also keep up with their speed, a bit like Mortos. More importantly though he is such a likeable and charismatic guy. Mack spent the first half doing some great comedy stuff and crowd interaction, but all the while remaining so dominant over Komander that the people were still really hot for the little man's comeback. Komander is excellent as a sympathetic underdog and his comeback was a spectacular as you'd expect from him. I really liked the look of this on paper and it definitely delivered. The live crowd loved it too, which is rare for ROH filler matches. 

Classic match of the week was a completely batshit tag team three way ladder match. Bucks vs Briscoes vs SCU. It was pretty nuts. 

Athena vs Lady Frost

Athena chaining Lexy to the post as Abadon bait made me laugh. Fun main event. I like Lady Frost but she never seems to gel very well with her opponents. The timing and rhythm always seems to be a bit off, and the fact it happens so consistently makes me think it's on her side. That said, I love all the cool stuff she can do and consistently enjoy watching her on that basis. Thought Athena gave her one of her better AEW/ROH singles outings here. 

Enjoyed the last three matches to varying degrees this episode. As Lorne Malvo said, if they just did 1-2 undercard matches, the classic bout and then a 10 minute TV main event it would be a quality episode of TV each week without the need for all the skipping. 
 

24/10/24

Spoiler

SKIPPED: Rocky Romero vs Brandon Cutler. Ew. 
EJ NDuka and Lee Johnson vs Jobbers. I did watch the bits where EJ was in. He looked great. Delightful spinebuster. What a unit.

Gates of Agony vs The Infantry

This was fun purely because of Toa. Full of physical charisma and throwing the Infantry boys about like so many sacks of spuds. The crowd was massively into him as well despite The Infantry (I think?) being the babyfaces in this match.

Reyna Isis vs Viva Van

CMLL vs New Japan academy. They didn't seem to click with each other in the first half, though Reyna had some impressive moments once it got going and seems like a capable high flier.

Leyla Hirsch promo! Not a natural talker but I do find her likeable and have enjoyed her work lately. Hope she can have an injury-free run for a bit. 

Classic match was Athena vs Mercedes Martinez. Didn't rewatch it as I'm trying to breeze through this backlog and it didn't happen all that long ago. It was a good'un though. Highlighted that Athena has been doing this ROH thing for more than long enough now. It has been one of the best wrestling reinventions I've ever witnessed and there have been many great moments and matches on this run, but it's ridiculous she's still on the show nobody watches after all this time. 

Athena celebration segment. Great performance from Athena. Some fun comedy stuff but the serious part was by far the best bit. You can tell whenever she gets on the subject, the fans and anyone else who has been following her incredible run agree that she is indeed massively underappreciated and underutilised. Everyone is so ready for her to be called up to AEW proper and given the push she deserves. Billie walking out was not impactful as she's done this countless times already. Again, it's the slowest feud in pro wrestling. I did also enjoy the remade original ROH women's title with added spinner belt feature. Textbook beatdown and heel-gets-cake-in-face ending with Abadon. Looking forward to that match. 

Komander vs Brian Cage

Another solid main event, Komander rarely misses for me. 

Shorter episode again this time. Athena bit and the main event were decent, rest was entirely skippable. 

31/10/24

Spoiler

THREE HOURS. Ludicrous.

SKIPPED: 

Preston Vance and Peter Avalon vs JD Drake and BEEF. 
Johnny TV vs jobber
Gates of Agony vs jobbers
Matt Taven vs Aaron Solo
Josh Woods vs Tomohiro Ishii
Top Flight vs Jobbers
"CLASSIC MATCH" Jay Lethal vs Curry Man.
Diamante vs jobber
Dark Order vs Iron Savages

Sammy Guevara and Dustin Promo. It was not good, Sammy sounded like he was boring himself. 

Reyna Isis vs Lady Frost. Sloppy start but they did some fun lucha things as it went on. Reyna shouting "OKAYYYYY" at random during the match was unintentionally funny and had the crowd making fun of it. Isis has looked just OK in both outings so far. She is certainly no Stephanie Vaqeur. 

JD Drake and BEEF promo. I am not enjoying this "BEEF tags with Workhorsemen but also annoys them" schtick. 

The Righteous vs Jobbers. The Righteous ended this with a new double team, where Vincent has a guy on his shoulders, then Dutch does a fireman carry take over on Vincent. Novel idea but didn't look very impactful by Righteous standards. They tried to break a jobber's leg after the match. Dustin and Sammy made the save. Later in the show The Righteous attack Dustin and Sammy backstage. The feud isn't the most inspiring but I'm grateful to see The Righteous feuding with anyone at all at this point. 

Billie Starkz killed a jobber, notable for a new and rather nasty looking One Winged Angel-esque finishing move. I like it. 

The Infantry formally join Shane Taylor Promotions backstage. I am indifferent. They then beat Angelico and Serpentico thanks to interference from Lee Moriarty. Imagine needing outside interference to beat Angelico and Serpentico. Not a great start for this heel turn. 

Lexy pleads with Billie Starkz to stick around for the main event to keep her safe from Abadon. Lexy is brilliant, one of the many talents being criminally waster on ROH.

Komander vs Daivari. Komander is such a great babyface, another top performance from him here battling the odds against the Premier Athletes' nonsense. 

As @Lorne Malvo says, have to give credit to Jericho for a solid backstage promo here hyping up the main event. 

ROH Women's Title: Athena vs Abadon - Ring of Horror match. 

The Athena spinner belt is just so awful. It's perfect for her in this role and I love it. Athena strutting out with a ton of EXTREMELY forced over-confidence was also great. Clearly terrified of Abadon as she has been for the whole feud. 

This was tremendous. Ring of horror is a loosely Halloween themed plunder match with both wrestlers also chained together by the wrist. They got twenty minutes and they put on a truly nutty hardcore match that did a great job of waking up a sleepy ROH taping crowd. Easily Abadon's best match in AEW/ROH for my money, with the stipulation covering some of her limitations but also allowing for some amazing visuals that were perfect for her character. Pulling the skewers out of her head and then slowly reeling Athena in using the chain with blood pouring down her face was cool as fuck. Lots of fun spots here, a mad powerbomb onto the steps, a table which took four attempts to break, tacks, ladder, some creative chain/chair spots. The finish was awesome too, with Athena hitting the O-Face from the top rope to the floor onto some chairs. It looked great and the chain clattering into the chairs made it sound brutal even though it appeared to be quite safe. 

I don't know who the two and a half hours of filler on this show was meant to be for but the main event was worth watching. Great to see Abadon in a big showcase match and Athena is just the greatest. 
 

07/11/24

Spoiler

Two hours. I guess I need to stop worrying about the run time when I tend to spend about 20-30 mins on an episode while skipping the rest. Still can't believe the previous one was three hours though. Insanity. 

SKIPPED:

The Infantry vs Jobbers
Angelico and Serpentico vs Jobbers
Sammy Guevara vs Preston Vance
Lee Johnson and EJ Nduka vs Jobbers. I like The Johnson/Nduka tag team though. Johnson bores me to tears as a singles wrestler but I like a small speedy guy/giant powerhouse tag team. 
Leyla Hirsch vs Jobber. Glad she's back but have too much backlog to be watching all the jobber matches. 
Aaron Solo vs Tomohiro Ishii
Nick Wayne vs Jobber 

Lee Moriarty promo. Can't get excited about Moriarty vs Taven for the pure title. He did his best here but man that is an uninteresting prospect. 

Outrunners vignette advertising their official bumbag on ShopAEW.com. Excellent. 

Athena promo. She says she's going to beat porcelain hussies in various countries, allowing Lexy to showcase her range of accents and international greetings. I liked "'Ello" for the UK. Billie Starkz wants Athena to forgive her. I guess this is because it's still early November and the PPV isn't until December, so they have to keep spinning those wheels until then. Soooo sloooow. 

Rachel Ellering vs Diamante. Wow, a non-jobber match between two mid carders on ROH TV, it can be done! Unfortunately this wasn't great. They didn't click and Ellering is not over at all. Like that they're getting behind Diamante at the moment though. Red Velvet attacking her after the match was funny. Diamante did hit her with the belt in the TV title match, but she did also get DQ's and lose for it. It's not like she screwed Velvet out of the title, so the attack felt a bit unjustified. Up for the rematch regardless though. 

Matt Taven promo. He also did his best but again, Moriarty vs Taven for the pure title is making me drowsy every time I type it. 

The Righteous vs Jobbers... but WAIT, Sammy and Dustin beat them down during their entrance. Big brawl, pull apart. An actual TV feud is happening. Can't believe it. 

Shane Taylor Promotions and the Infantry question some cannon fodder backstage on where to find Dustin Rhodes. Didn't they just see him do a run-in five seconds ago? This was pretty cool though, Taylor ordering the STP lads to murder everyone except the dude who gave them the info on Dustin. The Infantry are more interesting in this role I must admit. 

Classic match was STP vs Mexisquad, which did look fun and I love Bandido, but it was also in front of no crowd during Covid times, so it's a no from me. 

AR Fox vs Josh Woods. Fine match, the Premier Athletes sure do lose a lot. Post-match Nick Wayne ran in and beat up AR Fox. I know Wayne is the heel, but Fox has had that coming for a long long time after what him and Swerve did in Buddy Wayne's gym. 

Shibata vs The Butcher. Extended squash. Feel like these two could do better than this and it felt weird to end the show with a five minute squash match. 

Completely dead episode there, took about ten minutes to skim through it. 
 

14/11/24

Spoiler

SKIPPED:

Griff Garrison and Preston Vance vs Jobbers. Garrison and Vance is an exceptionally dull pairing. Almost impressive how uninteresting that team is. 
Aaron Solo vs Shibata. Stop putting Shibata in SKIP matches! Feels bad every time but I will not watch Aaron Solo. 

Gates of Agony vs Grizzled Young Vets vs The Kingdom vs Dark Order. Four actual teams having a match here on ROH TV. Wild. This was a bit disappointing though. Never really got out of first gear and the finish sort of happened. Shame as this sounded fun on paper. 

Sammy and Dustin killed some jobbers then got taken out by The Righteous. Again, I'll take The Righteous in a feud, and indeed any feud at all being built on ROH TV. 

Josh Woods vs Komander. Another good showing from Komander. He is so reliable. Did not think he would end up anywhere near this good a signing. Always felt like once I'd seen his big party tricks enough times that'd be it, but he is consistently excellent and I particularly enjoy him against powerhouse opponents.This match also had Alex Abrahantes hitting a spear on Mark Sterling. Did not expect that.

MXM Collection merchandise ad was great. 

Abadon vs Viva Van. Straight up squash here. Abadon has been a lot of fun to watch on this run in ROH. The fact that the character talks now allows them to be a lot more expressive and show more personality in the matches. Has made the character a more likeable babyface and also added more comedy and silliness without losing the spooky aura. The in-ring work has improved too, highlighted by the showcase match against Athena which was much much loner and more ambitious than anything I've seen from Abadon before. Always happy to see them on the card. 

Billie Starkz prepares to apologise to Athena (sigh) but Leila Grey of all people interrupts. Not the most exciting proving ground opponent there, Athena and Lexy were right to laugh. Athena making sure the spinner belt keeps spinning every time she talks is a lovely addition to her act. 

Athena vs Hyan. Wonderfully violent Athena performance even by her standards. Hyan had the temerity to land a few kicks and take control early on, then paid dearly for it for the rest of the match. 

The Righteous killed some jobbers and then did an in-ring promo! A PROMO IN THE RING ON ROH TELEVISION. They want the ROH tag titles. Dutch also pulled out the classic "Dusty Rhodes saw something in me and I'm basically his real son" angle which everyone always does against the Rhodes family.

ROH Women's TV Title: Red Velvet vs Diamante - Street Fight

Lovely to see back to back episodes with women's title matches main eventing. This wasn't anywhere near the standards of Dimante's wars with Leyla Hirsch but still an entertaining scrap. The set up of Red Velvet trying to avenge her WIN against Diamante the other week is silly, though the commentators tried to explain it by saying Diamante injured her with the belt shot in that match. Anyway, yeah, decent TV plunder match to end the show, Diamante loves these. I'd like a run for her as TV champion where she only defends it in Street Fights. 
 

21/11/24

Spoiler

SKIPPED:

Angelico vs Gabe Kidd
Shane Taylor Promotions vs JD Drake and BEEF. STP including the newly evil Infantry went for a post-match attack, unexpected save from The Kingdom. 
Kevin Knight vs Serpentico
Mike Bennett vs Tomohiro Ishii

The Righteous Vignette. This had a very cool visual style to it and excellent music. Dutch calling himself Dustin's long lost brother now. He's claiming he was handed down a cowbell from Dusty Rhodes because Dusty knew he'd appreciate it more than Dustin. The story is silly but this was a tremendous video. 

Classic match was The Briscoes vs Kensuke Sasaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima from Final Battle 2008. Haven't seen Nakajima in years so it was good to see him and his delightful strikes here. One of the best to ever do it, really should check out his extremely highly rated All Japan and NOAH stuff from the past few years. This one was not a classic match but a fun bit of nostalgia all the same. 

Shingo Takagi vs Ariya Daivari. Takes a lot to stop me skipping a Daivari singles outing, but Shingo will do it. Pretty standard fare, Shingo dominant and explosive, Sterling interfering to try and make a match out of it. Always lovely to see Shingo do his thing, hits me right in the Dragon Gate nostalgia. 

Athena vs Leila Grey. This was good! The power of Athena, giving anyone she faces the best match of their career, even someone as cold as Leila Grey. Leila was sympathetic and had way more aggression behind her offense than normal. I hadn't noted it until Caprice mentioned it in this match, but on top of being at her peak as a character and in-ring performer, Athena is in the best physical shape of her career right now. Get her on AEW! Also at one point she ran around the ring pretending to be an aeroplane to make fun of the whole Flight Attendant thing. Five stars. 

ROH TV Title: Brian Cage vs AR Fox. This was also good! Quality ten minute TV match here. The crowd got very lively and were 100% behind Fox by the end. Hot closing stretch and some great near falls. Again, I appreciate this run of episodes being main evented by ROH Titles being defended. Particularly the TV titles, as that should surely be the point of them. 
 

28/11/24 

Spoiler

SKIPPED:

EJ Nduka and Lee Johnson vs Jobbers
Queen Aminata vs Jobber
Josh Woods vs Matt Taven
AR Fox vs John Silver

Have to begrudgingly admit that Jericho had another good promo. It's so ridiculous that the ROH title only exists on Dynamite and PPVs though. All of the coverage of the world title picture on ROH TV is clips from Dynamite. 

MXM Collection vs The Iron Savages. God damn it. My streak of skipping everything Jameson/Savages related at all times has ended because I don't want to skip MXM. Highest praise I can give to MXM right there. They did their best. Built up to some good Madden hot tags and were their generally entertaining and funny selves.

The Savages are just so unpleasant in every way though. They're not funny, they're not effective heels, they look grotesque. Look at the fucking state of Boulder's "tan": 

God I hate them the most. 

Athena promo, she says she's going to qualify to get into the four way inter-promotional match at Wrestle Dynasty. I have a sneaking suspicion she is correct about that. 

The Righteous vs BEEF and JD Drake. Dutch vs fellow large boys sounded good and it was. JD Drake's babyface hot tags are great. He's good at everything. Dutch hit a Bossman slam on Drake too, which satisfied me greatly. Dutch also using the Bionic Elbow now to wind up Dustin. Dustin and Sammy run in at the end, Dustin all fired up and pissed off, but The Righteous bail. Gotta drag this out until Final Battle guys, take your time eh. 

Leiya Hirsch/Red Velvet vignette. Hirsch challenging for the TV Title at Final Battle. 

Classic match:  Chris Hero vs Eddie Kingston from Final Battle 2009. Utterly brutal Fight without Honor. They packed a lot into 15 minutes here. Could feel the hatred and intensity, spending every available moment trying to hurt each other. Completely insane high spot of the match was Hero bringing a ringside barricade into the ring and powerbombing Kingston onto it from the top. He did it facing the outside though, so Hero had to try and flip Kingston into a sitout powerbomb whilst falling backwards into the ring. Eddie didn't rotate all the way over and came down almost vertically onto the barricade. Incredibly dangerous and they just barely got away with it. Crazy match. Also the main event of that show was Austin Aries vs Seth Rollins in a 60 minute time limit draw. Good Lord. 

The Conglomeration (Briscoe/Romero/O'Reilly) vs Grizzled Young Vets and Pat Buck for some reason. This was a fine six man tag. I am still baffled as to why Gibson doesn't promo on the way to the ring. Not sure why you'd sign him and not make use of his ability to rile up a live crowd. 

05/12/24

Spoiler

SKIPPED:

Shibata vs Alex Reynolds. 
JD Drake and BEEF vs Jobbers
Griff Garrison and Preston Vance vs Gates of Agony 
Top Flight and Andretti vs Shane Taylor and The Infantry 

GYV promo to open! This during their glorious one month reign as New Japan Strong Openweight tag champions. Gibson is FURIOUS that some "extras" backstage are eating cakes from catering. Gibson cuts a fantastic promo and then GYV shove cake into one poor extra's face. Loved this. 

Jarrett Family/Lethal segment plugging the Black Machismo action figure. This was fun. Then QT Marshall turned up and tried to arrange something with Lethal and it went on forever for some reason. 

Trish Adora vs Rachel Ellering. Turns out the biggest positive from The Infantry heel turn is that Trish Adora has a personality now! This was the first time I've ever heard a crowd react to her ever. She has always been technically sound, good strikes, the kneeling German suplex and her massive lariat finish always looked great, but she was never either a face or a heel. She was just there. This was like night and day. Winding up the crowd, making fun of Ellering and drawing sympathy for her, viciously working the arm to get more heat. After the match she's all fired up talking shit into the camera. She's like a completely new person, I can't believe it. It fixed Ellering's similar issue of a lack of crowd connection too, as the people got behind her due to Trish being so mean. Love this new direction for Adora and hope she gets more chances to do this. Would put her up against Leyla Hirsch as soon as possible. 

TV Time with Chris Jericho, on ROH TV. Guess the ROH World title DOESN'T only exist on Dynamite. They certainly showed me. I did smile when he referred to New York as The Windy City and when Bryan Keith said Jericho would kick Frank Sinatra's ass. Matt Cardona surprise appearance to challenge Jericho for the title at Final Battle. Don't know much about what happened at Final Battle but I do know Jericho/Cardona was @RedTwoster's worst match of the year, so can't wait for that one.

Dark Order backstage. John Silver has stolen GYV's scarves because they were mean to that guy earlier. 

Rachel Ellering promo interrupted and massively improved by Harley Cameron. Harley is the best. 

Billie Starkz vs Lady Frost. This started OK and finished OK but had a horrendous looking botch in the middle of it which brought it down. Frost going for some kind of headscissors/rana but both of her legs landed on one of Billie's shoulders instead of either side of her head, then Starkz sort of flung herself into the corner anyway. It was bad. 

Classic match: Nigel vs Marufuji from Final Battle 2008. I'm sure this was very good as they're both amazing wrestlers, but I have too much backlog to get through so had to skip.

 

12/12/24 

Spoiler

Opening promo. Billie Starkz on her own with a camera pointed right at her. She goes "Hey, camera man, come here real quick". He's already there though. Anyway, she tries to do a rallying babyface promo about the big Wrestle Dynasty qualifier but Athena of course ruins it. Athena expects her to lay down like a good minion in the four way match. Billie says she wants to go to the Tokyo Dome too. Athena says it doesn't matter. 

Wrestle Dynasty Qualifier: Red Velvet vs Billie Starkz vs Leyla Hirsch vs Athena

For ROH TV this is about as substantial a match as you'll see. This is also a rare instance in one of these qualifier matches where all four warrant their position. Velvet is TV champ and has been defending it successfully, Athena is the unstoppable World champ, Leyla Hirsch won the featured feud and PPV blow off match with Diamante. Billie lost the TV title to Velvet, but other than that she's won every single match she's had since her last World Title challenge against Athena. You can definitely make the case that these are the top 4 in the division. 

Really fun four way match. Creative multiperson spots, everyone getting a good amount of shine, and well laid out to build up the two women's title matches at Final Battle. Starkz still showing hesitation whenever she had a chance to attack or deny Athena directly, Athena doing the same to Billie without a second's thought. Athena was the star of the match but all four had some strong moments. Once again, this women's division is the best reason to watch ROH. 

Outrunners vs Premier Athletes

Enjoyed this one. Sterling's pre-match schtick got the crowd wound up and they were hot for The Outrunners too. Turbo Floyd did an amazing job selling his leg here, I definitely bought the injury. Then he did a full on Hulk up spot to fight through it and build to the triumphant closing sequence. Good stuff. 

Dustin pre-tape. Had the good serious tone and hit some good points, but also wandered off course a few times. Seems to happen with his promos lately. Still mostly sounded good though and introduced the stipulation for the tag title match at Final Battle. 

Allysin Kay vs Madison Rayne. Madison Rayne out for the hometown appearance. Kay looked good as she always does. Solid heel powerhouse stuff. Madison Rayne looked pretty terrible. The fore arm strikes in particular have to be some of the worst of any wrestler ever. Ohio crowd was pleased to see her though, so that was nice. 

Alex Reynolds and John Silver promo pretending to be Grizzled Young Vets. Reynolds attempting to do a scouse accent might be my favourite thing I've ever seen him do. GYV confront them, Uno gives GYV their scarves back. They're playing up this idea that Uno is growing apart from Reynolds/Silver and wants them to start taking things more seriously. 

Toa Liona vs Lee Johnson

OK fine I'll watch the Lee Johnson match if it's against Toa. Short and sweet big man/little man, would happily watch these two go for longer. The finishing banzai drop from Toa looked utterly devastating. Post-match was odd. Johnson demanded a handshake, then slapped Toa for no reason. Toa then superkicked him for that. Than EJ Nnduka came out to "stand up for his friend". His friend was being a little dickhead though. Gates of Agony have been leaning more babyface lately, guess Johnson and Nduka are going heel. 

New Japan strong openweight tag titles: Grizzled Young Vets vs MXM Collection w/John Television

I forgot about the MXM/Johnny TV collab. I am a fan of it. Good match in front of a lively crowd. Perfect opponents for each other in terms of characters and they meshed well in-ring too. 

Jay Lethal/QT/Paul Wight segment. QT vs Jay Lethal made official for Final Battle. Who could possibly want that. 

Sammy and Dustin killed some jobbers. The Righteous come out. Vincent says they're going to ring Dustin's bell with Daddy's cowbell and make him see polka dots. Well, he said "poker dots". Maybe he's never seen it written down. This feud keeps on a'feudin'. 

ROH Pure Title: Matt Taven vs Lee Moriarty

OK fine it was pretty good. Thought the finish was particularly cool, Moriarty taking advantage of Taven having no rope breaks and making him tap via a horrendous looking illegal submission hold all tangled up in the ropes. 

Athena Promo! Says she's going to give Final Battle a miss because everyone's scared to face her. Love that. Also she says she's going to win at Wrestle Dynasty and then finally get back to A...E... Billie Starkz interrupts. Don't tease me with the Athena call up like that. I'm glad they're acknowledging it more and more frequently though. It is waaay beyond time. Billie makes the challenge for Final Battle AT LAST. A rematch one whole year in the making.

Contract signing with Jericho and Cardona. It was alright. Standard war of words and then challenger lays out the champ.

Best episode in aaaages there. No complete filler matches or endless squashes. Every match was between actual people, titles were defended, stories progressed, it even felt structurally like a weekly episode of wrestling TV rather than a bunch of filler content stitched together. 

 

19/12/24 

Spoiler

Skipped: Sidney Akeem vs Serpentico, 

Lee Johnson vs Bishop Kaun

I know to most this is one of the most boring pairings you could put together but I was mildly intrigued by the Johnson/Toa stuff on the last episode. Johnson is back to pure underdog babyface here though, with Khan viciously attacking the leg. Johnson gets battered for most of it but then scores a sneaky flash pin. Kaun doesn't look mad about it and goes to help Johnson up. Toa isn't happy about that, which is fair after the slap last week. Nduka then gets in Toa's face and they tease the big monster battle. I still see Nduka and Johnson turning heel and Gates of Agony going babyface after this. Gates of Agony have so far done nothing wrong! 

Lee Moriarty promo. Open challenge for the pure title at Final Battle. He's just a bit bland on the mic unfortunately. 

Leyla Hirsch and Red Velvet backstage thing ahead of their TV title match. Neither are great talkers but they kept it short and it was fine. Interested in the match. 

Lady Frost vs Queen Aminata

Feel like I haven't seen Aminata for ages. Solid little match this, Lady Frost's best outing during this backlog catch up and Aminata is always excellent. Aminata won with a mad looking submission hold I don't recall seeing from her before. Looked brutal, much like the rest of her offense. 

The Righteous catch Dustin Rhodes alone at a training facility. He doesn't hear them coming because he's busy hoovering the ring, what a good egg. They beat him down and bloody him pretty badly, then they Facetime Sammy Guevara and show him what they've done. They also smear Dustin's blood all over Dutch's cowbell. This was a really well produced and effective segment. They're putting a hell of a lot of time and effort into this Righteous/Sons of Texas feud, it's a shame almost nothing else on ROH gets this level of attention. 

Murder Machines vs Iron Savages

STOP PUTTING TEAMS I WANT TO WATCH AGAINST THE IRON SAVAGES. Cannot believe I've watched two Iron Savages matches in a row. I feel dirty. I won't pretend I didn't enjoy this. Archer vs Boulder was satisfying, Cage throwing the two big lads around was also good stuff.

Jay Lethal and QT Marshall sit down interview. What IS this shit honestly. Hard to articulate how uninteresting this is.

Classic match was Athena vs Billie Starkz. Didn't rewatch it as it wasn't that long ago. Was a belter though. 

Athena and Billie Starkz vs Jobbers

I liked this twist on the usual "PPV opponents team together before their big match" trope. Billie worked the first half with Athena talking shit the whole time, then when Athena was in she used Billie as a weapon in the most reckless and violent ways. She was just straight up hitting her with offensive moves that just so happened to land on the opponents. Loved this idea a lot as it was a perfect representation of the dynamic between them and why Billie has had enough. Post-match Billie destroys the spinner belt and they have an excellent brawl. Strong closing angle to head into the PPV match. Two years in a row we go into Final Battle with Athena surely on the verge of a call up and Starkz back as a babyface and fully sick of Athena's shit. Can Billie finish the story at Final Battle?

Jericho vignette/promo/recap of his attack on Cardona at GCW. This was very good I must admit.

Shane Taylor/Lee Moriarty/Grizzled Young Vets vs Dark Order/The Kingdom

Decent multiman tag to keep the STP vs Kingdom and GYV vs Dark Order feuds ticking over ahead of Final Battle. 
 

 

[Chili]

50 minutes ago, JLM said:

OK we have trawled the backlog all the way up to Final Battle at last. It hasn't taken that long in truth as I still skip massive chunks of every episode. 

03/10/24

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80 minute run time. Better.

Skipped:

Dustin/Von Erichs vs Premier Athletes. If we're not in Texas I'm not watching the Von Erich kids. 
Nyla Rose vs Jobber
Anthony Henry and BEEF vs Jobbers

Minion meeting. Athena and Lexy blaming Billie for everything, Billie standing up for herself a bit more each time. I enjoy Lexy in these segments. Athena celebration next week with the entire women's roster forced to attend. 

Infantry vs Outrunners. Very short but fine tag match. Funny to see how the Outrunners have deservedly leapfrogged The Infantry and are now clear favourites in a match like this. 

Then as Lorne Malvo mentioned, they showed Kobashi vs Joe. What a belter. Can't believe they had Ian and Caprice talk over the entrances with the audio muted. One of the coolest things about the match is Kobashi's genuine surprise at the thunderous babyface reaction he gets coming through the curtain, so cutting the audio of that for this replay was a bad call. Other than that though they did a great job adding some trivia/history notes, and the match is of course a classic. 

Solid main event from Briscoe and Taven. They have consistently good chemistry. 

Nothing much going on here. Joe/Kobashi the best bit, obviously. 

10/10/24

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Nearly two hour run time. Worse. 

Skipped:

Brandon Cutler vs Shibata
Billie Starkz vs jobber
Shane Taylor Promotions vs The Infantry
Lance Archer vs jobber

Another minion meeting. Man Starkz vs Athena is a longer story than Cody's. They did a really good job building up her first title challenge. The match was great too. I didn't even mind her losing with the story being that she wasn't QUITE there yet but would get her next time. The reset of Billie back into a minion so they can slooooowly turn her back babyface and build up to the rematch has been a slog though. On the plus side, Lady Frost appeared and actually said some words out of her mouth like a person who can talk. Also Athena accidentally challenging Frost to a proving ground match was a pretty funny and novel way to set it up.

NJPW NEVER Openweight title: Anthony Henry vs Gabe Kidd

This was pretty good! Well matched opponents in terms of style and physicality, and Kidd's antics (attacking BEEF, cutting a promo mid-match) brought some great babyface fire out of Henry. 

Dark Order promo. Uno says they're getting back into trios action. Then Jacked Jameson and the Iron Savages turned up so I skipped the rest of it. I hate them all so very, very much. 

ROH Women's TV Title: Red Velvet vs Diamante

Solid match this. The women's division is definitely one of the main reasons I still bother with ROH. Interesting story to this match here too. Diamante basically dominated for the duration. Had counters to every Velvet signature move and hope spot so the whole match was just an extended ass kicking of Velvet. Then Diamante hit Velvet with the TV title for no reason and got disqualified. Normally I would hate this finish but I actually kind of liked how they did it here. Almost like Diamante couldn't help herself in a similar vein to RUSH, where the love of beating someone down transcended all rationale. She was having too much fun and got carried away. She snapped out of it as soon as the decision was announced and then looked devastated. Didn't attack Velvet or the ref etc. as heels sometimes do in this situation, just looked annoyed at herself for throwing away the opportunity. Interested to see where that goes. 

Shane Taylor yells at The Infantry and invites them and Trish Adora to join STP. 

Danielson vs KENTA the classic match of the week. Absolute masterpiece between two guys who could not be more perfect opponents. Violent, intense, great sense of struggle for the duration and it builds to a white hot closing stretch. Can't beat an injured Danielson against an opponent with the tools and know-how to target it. In this case KENTA trying to shatter his arm for the whole thing and Danielson trying to fight without it for most of the match. Danielson's foot on the ropes making him the first man to survive a GTS is such a magical near fall. Unbelievable match. 

Another solid TV match from Mark Briscoe to close the show, this time against Josh Woods. 

Good amount of skippable filler as usual, but three good TV matches and a classic from KENTA and Danielson. Not bad. 

17/10/24

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Two hours again. Booo. 

Skipped:

Angelico and Serpentico vs Jobbers
Nick Wayne vs Jobber
Atlantis Jr. vs John Cruz

Wonderful promo from Mark Briscoe following his ROH title defense against Jericho at Wrestledream. He says he'll whup Chris Jericho on any and all AEW shows, including Hey EW and that show where they be cookin' and shit. Tremendous. 

Rachel Ellering promo interrupted by Harley Cameron who is, of course, the best. Only issue for Ellering is that Cameron as the heel is waaaay more likeable and entertaining. Hopefully pairing this will get something out of Ellering eventually. 

Yuka Sakazaki vs Viva Van 

Yuka always gets the crowd 100% behind her even in a nothing match like this. Viva Van has looked good in her AEW appearances throughout 2024, so was a shame to see her slip on a springboard attempt here and bail quite badly. Other than that this was a fine semi-squash.

Brian Cage promo. Says the TV title win is the push he needs to start the Age of Cage. Ties it in to an Olympic high diving metaphor. I suppose he is not technically a great promo but he does promos exactly how a giant 80s-esque muscleman pro wrestler should. Loud, brash and scatterbrained, so ultimately I'm a fan. 

MXM vs Midnight Heat. 

MXM so good that I'll watch their jobber match. Midnight Heat did a Russian leg sweep/back stabber double team that I've never seen before. MXM did their usual fun stuff. I love that Madden gives Summer Rae a shout out every match when he does her move.

Jack Cartwheel vs AR Fox

This was a delightful spotfest. Cartwheel looking more shredded than in previous appearances, though also sporting the dreaded Adam Cole jaundice tan. But yeah, these two did lots of great fancy moves at each other, also some fun back and forth sequences with their signature spots meshing together in creative ways. Fox also did a snap superplex! Never seen that before. Crazy with all the wrasslin' I have consumed that I still see new stuff fairly routinely. Very cool. 

Willie Mack vs Komander

I loved this. Willie Mack is great against luchadores as he can be the powerhouse but also keep up with their speed, a bit like Mortos. More importantly though he is such a likeable and charismatic guy. Mack spent the first half doing some great comedy stuff and crowd interaction, but all the while remaining so dominant over Komander that the people were still really hot for the little man's comeback. Komander is excellent as a sympathetic underdog and his comeback was a spectacular as you'd expect from him. I really liked the look of this on paper and it definitely delivered. The live crowd loved it too, which is rare for ROH filler matches. 

Classic match of the week was a completely batshit tag team three way ladder match. Bucks vs Briscoes vs SCU. It was pretty nuts. 

Athena vs Lady Frost

Athena chaining Lexy to the post as Abadon bait made me laugh. Fun main event. I like Lady Frost but she never seems to gel very well with her opponents. The timing and rhythm always seems to be a bit off, and the fact it happens so consistently makes me think it's on her side. That said, I love all the cool stuff she can do and consistently enjoy watching her on that basis. Thought Athena gave her one of her better AEW/ROH singles outings here. 

Enjoyed the last three matches to varying degrees this episode. As Lorne Malvo said, if they just did 1-2 undercard matches, the classic bout and then a 10 minute TV main event it would be a quality episode of TV each week without the need for all the skipping. 
 

24/10/24

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SKIPPED: Rocky Romero vs Brandon Cutler. Ew. 
EJ NDuka and Lee Johnson vs Jobbers. I did watch the bits where EJ was in. He looked great. Delightful spinebuster. What a unit.

Gates of Agony vs The Infantry

This was fun purely because of Toa. Full of physical charisma and throwing the Infantry boys about like so many sacks of spuds. The crowd was massively into him as well despite The Infantry (I think?) being the babyfaces in this match.

Reyna Isis vs Viva Van

CMLL vs New Japan academy. They didn't seem to click with each other in the first half, though Reyna had some impressive moments once it got going and seems like a capable high flier.

Leyla Hirsch promo! Not a natural talker but I do find her likeable and have enjoyed her work lately. Hope she can have an injury-free run for a bit. 

Classic match was Athena vs Mercedes Martinez. Didn't rewatch it as I'm trying to breeze through this backlog and it didn't happen all that long ago. It was a good'un though. Highlighted that Athena has been doing this ROH thing for more than long enough now. It has been one of the best wrestling reinventions I've ever witnessed and there have been many great moments and matches on this run, but it's ridiculous she's still on the show nobody watches after all this time. 

Athena celebration segment. Great performance from Athena. Some fun comedy stuff but the serious part was by far the best bit. You can tell whenever she gets on the subject, the fans and anyone else who has been following her incredible run agree that she is indeed massively underappreciated and underutilised. Everyone is so ready for her to be called up to AEW proper and given the push she deserves. Billie walking out was not impactful as she's done this countless times already. Again, it's the slowest feud in pro wrestling. I did also enjoy the remade original ROH women's title with added spinner belt feature. Textbook beatdown and heel-gets-cake-in-face ending with Abadon. Looking forward to that match. 

Komander vs Brian Cage

Another solid main event, Komander rarely misses for me. 

Shorter episode again this time. Athena bit and the main event were decent, rest was entirely skippable. 

31/10/24

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THREE HOURS. Ludicrous.

SKIPPED: 

Preston Vance and Peter Avalon vs JD Drake and BEEF. 
Johnny TV vs jobber
Gates of Agony vs jobbers
Matt Taven vs Aaron Solo
Josh Woods vs Tomohiro Ishii
Top Flight vs Jobbers
"CLASSIC MATCH" Jay Lethal vs Curry Man.
Diamante vs jobber
Dark Order vs Iron Savages

Sammy Guevara and Dustin Promo. It was not good, Sammy sounded like he was boring himself. 

Reyna Isis vs Lady Frost. Sloppy start but they did some fun lucha things as it went on. Reyna shouting "OKAYYYYY" at random during the match was unintentionally funny and had the crowd making fun of it. Isis has looked just OK in both outings so far. She is certainly no Stephanie Vaqeur. 

JD Drake and BEEF promo. I am not enjoying this "BEEF tags with Workhorsemen but also annoys them" schtick. 

The Righteous vs Jobbers. The Righteous ended this with a new double team, where Vincent has a guy on his shoulders, then Dutch does a fireman carry take over on Vincent. Novel idea but didn't look very impactful by Righteous standards. They tried to break a jobber's leg after the match. Dustin and Sammy made the save. Later in the show The Righteous attack Dustin and Sammy backstage. The feud isn't the most inspiring but I'm grateful to see The Righteous feuding with anyone at all at this point. 

Billie Starkz killed a jobber, notable for a new and rather nasty looking One Winged Angel-esque finishing move. I like it. 

The Infantry formally join Shane Taylor Promotions backstage. I am indifferent. They then beat Angelico and Serpentico thanks to interference from Lee Moriarty. Imagine needing outside interference to beat Angelico and Serpentico. Not a great start for this heel turn. 

Lexy pleads with Billie Starkz to stick around for the main event to keep her safe from Abadon. Lexy is brilliant, one of the many talents being criminally waster on ROH.

Komander vs Daivari. Komander is such a great babyface, another top performance from him here battling the odds against the Premier Athletes' nonsense. 

As @Lorne Malvo says, have to give credit to Jericho for a solid backstage promo here hyping up the main event. 

ROH Women's Title: Athena vs Abadon - Ring of Horror match. 

The Athena spinner belt is just so awful. It's perfect for her in this role and I love it. Athena strutting out with a ton of EXTREMELY forced over-confidence was also great. Clearly terrified of Abadon as she has been for the whole feud. 

This was tremendous. Ring of horror is a loosely Halloween themed plunder match with both wrestlers also chained together by the wrist. They got twenty minutes and they put on a truly nutty hardcore match that did a great job of waking up a sleepy ROH taping crowd. Easily Abadon's best match in AEW/ROH for my money, with the stipulation covering some of her limitations but also allowing for some amazing visuals that were perfect for her character. Pulling the skewers out of her head and then slowly reeling Athena in using the chain with blood pouring down her face was cool as fuck. Lots of fun spots here, a mad powerbomb onto the steps, a table which took four attempts to break, tacks, ladder, some creative chain/chair spots. The finish was awesome too, with Athena hitting the O-Face from the top rope to the floor onto some chairs. It looked great and the chain clattering into the chairs made it sound brutal even though it appeared to be quite safe. 

I don't know who the two and a half hours of filler on this show was meant to be for but the main event was worth watching. Great to see Abadon in a big showcase match and Athena is just the greatest. 
 

07/11/24

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Two hours. I guess I need to stop worrying about the run time when I tend to spend about 20-30 mins on an episode while skipping the rest. Still can't believe the previous one was three hours though. Insanity. 

SKIPPED:

The Infantry vs Jobbers
Angelico and Serpentico vs Jobbers
Sammy Guevara vs Preston Vance
Lee Johnson and EJ Nduka vs Jobbers. I like The Johnson/Nduka tag team though. Johnson bores me to tears as a singles wrestler but I like a small speedy guy/giant powerhouse tag team. 
Leyla Hirsch vs Jobber. Glad she's back but have too much backlog to be watching all the jobber matches. 
Aaron Solo vs Tomohiro Ishii
Nick Wayne vs Jobber 

Lee Moriarty promo. Can't get excited about Moriarty vs Taven for the pure title. He did his best here but man that is an uninteresting prospect. 

Outrunners vignette advertising their official bumbag on ShopAEW.com. Excellent. 

Athena promo. She says she's going to beat porcelain hussies in various countries, allowing Lexy to showcase her range of accents and international greetings. I liked "'Ello" for the UK. Billie Starkz wants Athena to forgive her. I guess this is because it's still early November and the PPV isn't until December, so they have to keep spinning those wheels until then. Soooo sloooow. 

Rachel Ellering vs Diamante. Wow, a non-jobber match between two mid carders on ROH TV, it can be done! Unfortunately this wasn't great. They didn't click and Ellering is not over at all. Like that they're getting behind Diamante at the moment though. Red Velvet attacking her after the match was funny. Diamante did hit her with the belt in the TV title match, but she did also get DQ's and lose for it. It's not like she screwed Velvet out of the title, so the attack felt a bit unjustified. Up for the rematch regardless though. 

Matt Taven promo. He also did his best but again, Moriarty vs Taven for the pure title is making me drowsy every time I type it. 

The Righteous vs Jobbers... but WAIT, Sammy and Dustin beat them down during their entrance. Big brawl, pull apart. An actual TV feud is happening. Can't believe it. 

Shane Taylor Promotions and the Infantry question some cannon fodder backstage on where to find Dustin Rhodes. Didn't they just see him do a run-in five seconds ago? This was pretty cool though, Taylor ordering the STP lads to murder everyone except the dude who gave them the info on Dustin. The Infantry are more interesting in this role I must admit. 

Classic match was STP vs Mexisquad, which did look fun and I love Bandido, but it was also in front of no crowd during Covid times, so it's a no from me. 

AR Fox vs Josh Woods. Fine match, the Premier Athletes sure do lose a lot. Post-match Nick Wayne ran in and beat up AR Fox. I know Wayne is the heel, but Fox has had that coming for a long long time after what him and Swerve did in Buddy Wayne's gym. 

Shibata vs The Butcher. Extended squash. Feel like these two could do better than this and it felt weird to end the show with a five minute squash match. 

Completely dead episode there, took about ten minutes to skim through it. 
 

14/11/24

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SKIPPED:

Griff Garrison and Preston Vance vs Jobbers. Garrison and Vance is an exceptionally dull pairing. Almost impressive how uninteresting that team is. 
Aaron Solo vs Shibata. Stop putting Shibata in SKIP matches! Feels bad every time but I will not watch Aaron Solo. 

Gates of Agony vs Grizzled Young Vets vs The Kingdom vs Dark Order. Four actual teams having a match here on ROH TV. Wild. This was a bit disappointing though. Never really got out of first gear and the finish sort of happened. Shame as this sounded fun on paper. 

Sammy and Dustin killed some jobbers then got taken out by The Righteous. Again, I'll take The Righteous in a feud, and indeed any feud at all being built on ROH TV. 

Josh Woods vs Komander. Another good showing from Komander. He is so reliable. Did not think he would end up anywhere near this good a signing. Always felt like once I'd seen his big party tricks enough times that'd be it, but he is consistently excellent and I particularly enjoy him against powerhouse opponents.This match also had Alex Abrahantes hitting a spear on Mark Sterling. Did not expect that.

MXM Collection merchandise ad was great. 

Abadon vs Viva Van. Straight up squash here. Abadon has been a lot of fun to watch on this run in ROH. The fact that the character talks now allows them to be a lot more expressive and show more personality in the matches. Has made the character a more likeable babyface and also added more comedy and silliness without losing the spooky aura. The in-ring work has improved too, highlighted by the showcase match against Athena which was much much loner and more ambitious than anything I've seen from Abadon before. Always happy to see them on the card. 

Billie Starkz prepares to apologise to Athena (sigh) but Leila Grey of all people interrupts. Not the most exciting proving ground opponent there, Athena and Lexy were right to laugh. Athena making sure the spinner belt keeps spinning every time she talks is a lovely addition to her act. 

Athena vs Hyan. Wonderfully violent Athena performance even by her standards. Hyan had the temerity to land a few kicks and take control early on, then paid dearly for it for the rest of the match. 

The Righteous killed some jobbers and then did an in-ring promo! A PROMO IN THE RING ON ROH TELEVISION. They want the ROH tag titles. Dutch also pulled out the classic "Dusty Rhodes saw something in me and I'm basically his real son" angle which everyone always does against the Rhodes family.

ROH Women's TV Title: Red Velvet vs Diamante - Street Fight

Lovely to see back to back episodes with women's title matches main eventing. This wasn't anywhere near the standards of Dimante's wars with Leyla Hirsch but still an entertaining scrap. The set up of Red Velvet trying to avenge her WIN against Diamante the other week is silly, though the commentators tried to explain it by saying Diamante injured her with the belt shot in that match. Anyway, yeah, decent TV plunder match to end the show, Diamante loves these. I'd like a run for her as TV champion where she only defends it in Street Fights. 
 

21/11/24

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SKIPPED:

Angelico vs Gabe Kidd
Shane Taylor Promotions vs JD Drake and BEEF. STP including the newly evil Infantry went for a post-match attack, unexpected save from The Kingdom. 
Kevin Knight vs Serpentico
Mike Bennett vs Tomohiro Ishii

The Righteous Vignette. This had a very cool visual style to it and excellent music. Dutch calling himself Dustin's long lost brother now. He's claiming he was handed down a cowbell from Dusty Rhodes because Dusty knew he'd appreciate it more than Dustin. The story is silly but this was a tremendous video. 

Classic match was The Briscoes vs Kensuke Sasaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima from Final Battle 2008. Haven't seen Nakajima in years so it was good to see him and his delightful strikes here. One of the best to ever do it, really should check out his extremely highly rated All Japan and NOAH stuff from the past few years. This one was not a classic match but a fun bit of nostalgia all the same. 

Shingo Takagi vs Ariya Daivari. Takes a lot to stop me skipping a Daivari singles outing, but Shingo will do it. Pretty standard fare, Shingo dominant and explosive, Sterling interfering to try and make a match out of it. Always lovely to see Shingo do his thing, hits me right in the Dragon Gate nostalgia. 

Athena vs Leila Grey. This was good! The power of Athena, giving anyone she faces the best match of their career, even someone as cold as Leila Grey. Leila was sympathetic and had way more aggression behind her offense than normal. I hadn't noted it until Caprice mentioned it in this match, but on top of being at her peak as a character and in-ring performer, Athena is in the best physical shape of her career right now. Get her on AEW! Also at one point she ran around the ring pretending to be an aeroplane to make fun of the whole Flight Attendant thing. Five stars. 

ROH TV Title: Brian Cage vs AR Fox. This was also good! Quality ten minute TV match here. The crowd got very lively and were 100% behind Fox by the end. Hot closing stretch and some great near falls. Again, I appreciate this run of episodes being main evented by ROH Titles being defended. Particularly the TV titles, as that should surely be the point of them. 
 

28/11/24 

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SKIPPED:

EJ Nduka and Lee Johnson vs Jobbers
Queen Aminata vs Jobber
Josh Woods vs Matt Taven
AR Fox vs John Silver

Have to begrudgingly admit that Jericho had another good promo. It's so ridiculous that the ROH title only exists on Dynamite and PPVs though. All of the coverage of the world title picture on ROH TV is clips from Dynamite. 

MXM Collection vs The Iron Savages. God damn it. My streak of skipping everything Jameson/Savages related at all times has ended because I don't want to skip MXM. Highest praise I can give to MXM right there. They did their best. Built up to some good Madden hot tags and were their generally entertaining and funny selves.

The Savages are just so unpleasant in every way though. They're not funny, they're not effective heels, they look grotesque. Look at the fucking state of Boulder's "tan": 

God I hate them the most. 

Athena promo, she says she's going to qualify to get into the four way inter-promotional match at Wrestle Dynasty. I have a sneaking suspicion she is correct about that. 

The Righteous vs BEEF and JD Drake. Dutch vs fellow large boys sounded good and it was. JD Drake's babyface hot tags are great. He's good at everything. Dutch hit a Bossman slam on Drake too, which satisfied me greatly. Dutch also using the Bionic Elbow now to wind up Dustin. Dustin and Sammy run in at the end, Dustin all fired up and pissed off, but The Righteous bail. Gotta drag this out until Final Battle guys, take your time eh. 

Leiya Hirsch/Red Velvet vignette. Hirsch challenging for the TV Title at Final Battle. 

Classic match:  Chris Hero vs Eddie Kingston from Final Battle 2009. Utterly brutal Fight without Honor. They packed a lot into 15 minutes here. Could feel the hatred and intensity, spending every available moment trying to hurt each other. Completely insane high spot of the match was Hero bringing a ringside barricade into the ring and powerbombing Kingston onto it from the top. He did it facing the outside though, so Hero had to try and flip Kingston into a sitout powerbomb whilst falling backwards into the ring. Eddie didn't rotate all the way over and came down almost vertically onto the barricade. Incredibly dangerous and they just barely got away with it. Crazy match. Also the main event of that show was Austin Aries vs Seth Rollins in a 60 minute time limit draw. Good Lord. 

The Conglomeration (Briscoe/Romero/O'Reilly) vs Grizzled Young Vets and Pat Buck for some reason. This was a fine six man tag. I am still baffled as to why Gibson doesn't promo on the way to the ring. Not sure why you'd sign him and not make use of his ability to rile up a live crowd. 

05/12/24

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SKIPPED:

Shibata vs Alex Reynolds. 
JD Drake and BEEF vs Jobbers
Griff Garrison and Preston Vance vs Gates of Agony 
Top Flight and Andretti vs Shane Taylor and The Infantry 

GYV promo to open! This during their glorious one month reign as New Japan Strong Openweight tag champions. Gibson is FURIOUS that some "extras" backstage are eating cakes from catering. Gibson cuts a fantastic promo and then GYV shove cake into one poor extra's face. Loved this. 

Jarrett Family/Lethal segment plugging the Black Machismo action figure. This was fun. Then QT Marshall turned up and tried to arrange something with Lethal and it went on forever for some reason. 

Trish Adora vs Rachel Ellering. Turns out the biggest positive from The Infantry heel turn is that Trish Adora has a personality now! This was the first time I've ever heard a crowd react to her ever. She has always been technically sound, good strikes, the kneeling German suplex and her massive lariat finish always looked great, but she was never either a face or a heel. She was just there. This was like night and day. Winding up the crowd, making fun of Ellering and drawing sympathy for her, viciously working the arm to get more heat. After the match she's all fired up talking shit into the camera. She's like a completely new person, I can't believe it. It fixed Ellering's similar issue of a lack of crowd connection too, as the people got behind her due to Trish being so mean. Love this new direction for Adora and hope she gets more chances to do this. Would put her up against Leyla Hirsch as soon as possible. 

TV Time with Chris Jericho, on ROH TV. Guess the ROH World title DOESN'T only exist on Dynamite. They certainly showed me. I did smile when he referred to New York as The Windy City and when Bryan Keith said Jericho would kick Frank Sinatra's ass. Matt Cardona surprise appearance to challenge Jericho for the title at Final Battle. Don't know much about what happened at Final Battle but I do know Jericho/Cardona was @RedTwoster's worst match of the year, so can't wait for that one.

Dark Order backstage. John Silver has stolen GYV's scarves because they were mean to that guy earlier. 

Rachel Ellering promo interrupted and massively improved by Harley Cameron. Harley is the best. 

Billie Starkz vs Lady Frost. This started OK and finished OK but had a horrendous looking botch in the middle of it which brought it down. Frost going for some kind of headscissors/rana but both of her legs landed on one of Billie's shoulders instead of either side of her head, then Starkz sort of flung herself into the corner anyway. It was bad. 

Classic match: Nigel vs Marufuji from Final Battle 2008. I'm sure this was very good as they're both amazing wrestlers, but I have too much backlog to get through so had to skip.

 

12/12/24 

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Opening promo. Billie Starkz on her own with a camera pointed right at her. She goes "Hey, camera man, come here real quick". He's already there though. Anyway, she tries to do a rallying babyface promo about the big Wrestle Dynasty qualifier but Athena of course ruins it. Athena expects her to lay down like a good minion in the four way match. Billie says she wants to go to the Tokyo Dome too. Athena says it doesn't matter. 

Wrestle Dynasty Qualifier: Red Velvet vs Billie Starkz vs Leyla Hirsch vs Athena

For ROH TV this is about as substantial a match as you'll see. This is also a rare instance in one of these qualifier matches where all four warrant their position. Velvet is TV champ and has been defending it successfully, Athena is the unstoppable World champ, Leyla Hirsch won the featured feud and PPV blow off match with Diamante. Billie lost the TV title to Velvet, but other than that she's won every single match she's had since her last World Title challenge against Athena. You can definitely make the case that these are the top 4 in the division. 

Really fun four way match. Creative multiperson spots, everyone getting a good amount of shine, and well laid out to build up the two women's title matches at Final Battle. Starkz still showing hesitation whenever she had a chance to attack or deny Athena directly, Athena doing the same to Billie without a second's thought. Athena was the star of the match but all four had some strong moments. Once again, this women's division is the best reason to watch ROH. 

Outrunners vs Premier Athletes

Enjoyed this one. Sterling's pre-match schtick got the crowd wound up and they were hot for The Outrunners too. Turbo Floyd did an amazing job selling his leg here, I definitely bought the injury. Then he did a full on Hulk up spot to fight through it and build to the triumphant closing sequence. Good stuff. 

Dustin pre-tape. Had the good serious tone and hit some good points, but also wandered off course a few times. Seems to happen with his promos lately. Still mostly sounded good though and introduced the stipulation for the tag title match at Final Battle. 

Allysin Kay vs Madison Rayne. Madison Rayne out for the hometown appearance. Kay looked good as she always does. Solid heel powerhouse stuff. Madison Rayne looked pretty terrible. The fore arm strikes in particular have to be some of the worst of any wrestler ever. Ohio crowd was pleased to see her though, so that was nice. 

Alex Reynolds and John Silver promo pretending to be Grizzled Young Vets. Reynolds attempting to do a scouse accent might be my favourite thing I've ever seen him do. GYV confront them, Uno gives GYV their scarves back. They're playing up this idea that Uno is growing apart from Reynolds/Silver and wants them to start taking things more seriously. 

Toa Liona vs Lee Johnson

OK fine I'll watch the Lee Johnson match if it's against Toa. Short and sweet big man/little man, would happily watch these two go for longer. The finishing banzai drop from Toa looked utterly devastating. Post-match was odd. Johnson demanded a handshake, then slapped Toa for no reason. Toa then superkicked him for that. Than EJ Nnduka came out to "stand up for his friend". His friend was being a little dickhead though. Gates of Agony have been leaning more babyface lately, guess Johnson and Nduka are going heel. 

New Japan strong openweight tag titles: Grizzled Young Vets vs MXM Collection w/John Television

I forgot about the MXM/Johnny TV collab. I am a fan of it. Good match in front of a lively crowd. Perfect opponents for each other in terms of characters and they meshed well in-ring too. 

Jay Lethal/QT/Paul Wight segment. QT vs Jay Lethal made official for Final Battle. Who could possibly want that. 

Sammy and Dustin killed some jobbers. The Righteous come out. Vincent says they're going to ring Dustin's bell with Daddy's cowbell and make him see polka dots. Well, he said "poker dots". Maybe he's never seen it written down. This feud keeps on a'feudin'. 

ROH Pure Title: Matt Taven vs Lee Moriarty

OK fine it was pretty good. Thought the finish was particularly cool, Moriarty taking advantage of Taven having no rope breaks and making him tap via a horrendous looking illegal submission hold all tangled up in the ropes. 

Athena Promo! Says she's going to give Final Battle a miss because everyone's scared to face her. Love that. Also she says she's going to win at Wrestle Dynasty and then finally get back to A...E... Billie Starkz interrupts. Don't tease me with the Athena call up like that. I'm glad they're acknowledging it more and more frequently though. It is waaay beyond time. Billie makes the challenge for Final Battle AT LAST. A rematch one whole year in the making.

Contract signing with Jericho and Cardona. It was alright. Standard war of words and then challenger lays out the champ.

Best episode in aaaages there. No complete filler matches or endless squashes. Every match was between actual people, titles were defended, stories progressed, it even felt structurally like a weekly episode of wrestling TV rather than a bunch of filler content stitched together. 

 

19/12/24 

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Skipped: Sidney Akeem vs Serpentico, 

Lee Johnson vs Bishop Kaun

I know to most this is one of the most boring pairings you could put together but I was mildly intrigued by the Johnson/Toa stuff on the last episode. Johnson is back to pure underdog babyface here though, with Khan viciously attacking the leg. Johnson gets battered for most of it but then scores a sneaky flash pin. Kaun doesn't look mad about it and goes to help Johnson up. Toa isn't happy about that, which is fair after the slap last week. Nduka then gets in Toa's face and they tease the big monster battle. I still see Nduka and Johnson turning heel and Gates of Agony going babyface after this. Gates of Agony have so far done nothing wrong! 

Lee Moriarty promo. Open challenge for the pure title at Final Battle. He's just a bit bland on the mic unfortunately. 

Leyla Hirsch and Red Velvet backstage thing ahead of their TV title match. Neither are great talkers but they kept it short and it was fine. Interested in the match. 

Lady Frost vs Queen Aminata

Feel like I haven't seen Aminata for ages. Solid little match this, Lady Frost's best outing during this backlog catch up and Aminata is always excellent. Aminata won with a mad looking submission hold I don't recall seeing from her before. Looked brutal, much like the rest of her offense. 

The Righteous catch Dustin Rhodes alone at a training facility. He doesn't hear them coming because he's busy hoovering the ring, what a good egg. They beat him down and bloody him pretty badly, then they Facetime Sammy Guevara and show him what they've done. They also smear Dustin's blood all over Dutch's cowbell. This was a really well produced and effective segment. They're putting a hell of a lot of time and effort into this Righteous/Sons of Texas feud, it's a shame almost nothing else on ROH gets this level of attention. 

Murder Machines vs Iron Savages

STOP PUTTING TEAMS I WANT TO WATCH AGAINST THE IRON SAVAGES. Cannot believe I've watched two Iron Savages matches in a row. I feel dirty. I won't pretend I didn't enjoy this. Archer vs Boulder was satisfying, Cage throwing the two big lads around was also good stuff.

Jay Lethal and QT Marshall sit down interview. What IS this shit honestly. Hard to articulate how uninteresting this is.

Classic match was Athena vs Billie Starkz. Didn't rewatch it as it wasn't that long ago. Was a belter though. 

Athena and Billie Starkz vs Jobbers

I liked this twist on the usual "PPV opponents team together before their big match" trope. Billie worked the first half with Athena talking shit the whole time, then when Athena was in she used Billie as a weapon in the most reckless and violent ways. She was just straight up hitting her with offensive moves that just so happened to land on the opponents. Loved this idea a lot as it was a perfect representation of the dynamic between them and why Billie has had enough. Post-match Billie destroys the spinner belt and they have an excellent brawl. Strong closing angle to head into the PPV match. Two years in a row we go into Final Battle with Athena surely on the verge of a call up and Starkz back as a babyface and fully sick of Athena's shit. Can Billie finish the story at Final Battle?

Jericho vignette/promo/recap of his attack on Cardona at GCW. This was very good I must admit.

Shane Taylor/Lee Moriarty/Grizzled Young Vets vs Dark Order/The Kingdom

Decent multiman tag to keep the STP vs Kingdom and GYV vs Dark Order feuds ticking over ahead of Final Battle. 
 

 

I'm gonna get round to reading these because I love your reviews, but fockin'ell.

[LaGoosh]

Absolute maniac.

[JLM]

The dangers of being a snowed-in sicko. I work from home but my work laptop is knackered and needs to be fixed on-site by IT people. However, work have told everyone not to go anywhere near the building this week. This has granted me a full week of good old fashioned  snow days. Been seeing friends and family in the evenings, but during the day I have done very little besides consuming media and trying not to break my ankles when walking the dog. I will never ever get used to Yorkshire winters. 
 

After Final Battle I’ll have to do the actual AEW backlog. Might be up to date by the summer if I’m lucky. 

[HarmonicGenerator]

Incredible work @JLM. I have already read all of that because my own work’s IT are currently trying to fix my laptop via TeamViewer while I work from home.

UPDATE: They just killed it dead, and I’m told I’m getting a new one on Monday. Tony Khan to blame?

Edited January 10, 2025 by HarmonicGenerator
If I didn’t imagine it happening, of course… The last ROH show I watched in full was maybe that one where WWE lent out CM Punk in, maybe, 09?