ROH TV 8/3/12 and more

Sorry for being absent last week folks, situations were situating beyond my control. Luckily Ring of Honor has you covered, since the previous show was recapped in Inside ROH. So when we get to that point you get my thoughts on last week’s show featuring Adam Cole challenging Roderick Strong for the TV title and more. And of course we have our newest slice of ROH: rematches aplenty as the third and allegedly final match in the Lance Storm vs. Mike Bennett series main events, and also we will hear from CHIKARA Grand Champion and Kevin Steen’s next challenger for the ROH World title at Boiling Point, Eddie Kingston; as well as The Briscoes vs. The Guardians of Truth.

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–We kick right off with the Briscoes vs. Truth Martini’s Guardians of Truth, aka The Headbangers under black masks. Some people think it would make more sense to try to bank off of the fame the Headbangers have directly, but honestly, would anyone really buy a past-their-prime team like the Bangers challenging the Briscoes? Now, if they establish themselves as the Guardians to where it looks like maybe they could still be a legit tag team to be reckoned with, then they can always unmask as the Headbangers (or something along those lines, since WWE might not cotton to them using their trademark) and they’ll seem like a revitalized team rather than has-beens. Anyhow, for quick reference, the easiest way to tell which Guardian is which is that the former Mosh has the cross tattoo poking out of his armband. Not all that easy in the heat of action but in close ups that’s the best way to go about it. Good back & forth action in this one, with the Guardians mostly just selling for a lot of The Briscoes’ big spots and keeping their segments short. Pretty meat & potatoes all around but hey, that’s the beautiful thing about tag team wrestling, the formula always works. Near the end Dem Boys dropped a Guardian with a Death Valley Driver from Jay followed up by a Froggy ‘Bow from Mark, which got a two count, and the Doomsday Device was countered into a double suplex attempt from the Guardians, which was broken up by a spear from Mark and a small package from Jay for the win. Post match it was a House of Truth beatdown on The Briscoes, with Roderick Strong and Rhino joining in and Michael Elgin sowing another seed of dissent by coming out to the ramp and then deciding not to join in. The Guardians even hit their old Stage Dive (powerbomb and guillotine legdrop combination) before Jay Lethal, Adam Cole, Caprice Coleman, and Cedric Alexander made the fashionably late babyface save. Matches like this and the Guardians should have no problem showing people they can at least keep up, while Dem Boys are great as always.

–Not much to say about the promo from Eddie Kingston except this: he comes out without his CHIKARA belt, he never mentions being CHIKARA champion, and he talks about finally winning a World title to honor his family and the memory of Larry Sweeney. Way to put over your own company there, champ. He all but said his CHIKARA title is inferior to ROH’s, and considering the strides CHIKARA has been making compared to ROH that really isn’t a fair statement anymore. So we have a champion vs. champion feud where one champion wants to, kayfabe at least, destroy the company he’s champion of and one champion who doesn’t think his own title is on the level of his opponent’s. Interesting.

–Inside ROH we have our recap of the highlights of last week’s show, and my quick & dirty thoughts on it are as follows:

-In the ongoing web of Tommaso Ciampa trying to ascertain whether the deal between The Embassy and the House of Truth to sign Rhino involved The Embassy stooging out Ciampa so he would not get a title match against Roderick Strong, Ciampa finally confronted Martini and Martini passed the buck to Prince Nana and RD Evans. Evans, in turn, laid all the blame on Nana, who Ciampa laid out with an Emerald Whateverthefucksion. I guess this would mean going forward that just Evans will be representing Ciampa, and if that means more mic time for one of the more underrated characters in ROH, I’m all for it. I guess now that Strong has dropped the title to Adam Cole, the writing on the wall is a Cole/Ciampa feud, which could be great.

-The All Night Express came out for their first promo as tag champs, marking the first appearance of Kenny King on ROH since his jump to TNA but not his last, which will happen next week. They were interrupted and challenged by Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team, and after accepting, WGTT attacked ANX and Shelton laid them both out with chairs, including a shot to Kenny’s head that would have been a good storyline excuse to say that King was taken out of ROH permanently, if not for the fact that they also had filmed a match that will air next week. Shelton is thus suspended kayfabe for his second strike in terms of hitting people with chairs, and Charlie Haas even sowed some seeds of dissent by trying to hold him back. IRL, Shelton is going to be competing in Japan and was not able to participate in the soon to be seen tag title tournament, leaving Charlie partnerless. I normally don’t read spoilers but just this once I did, and they go in an interesting direction with this, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

-And finally, in the news that shocked no one since ROH went and spoiled it on their own website when it happened nearly two months ago, Adam Cole pinned Roderick Strong to win the TV Title with the Florida Key. Cole fits that mold Jim Cornette loves of the blowjob babyface (normally it’d be a blowjob tag team but the closest they had to that was ANX, neither of whom are pretty boys by conventional standards), and he’s clearly a talented worker. With Jay Lethal likely to move up into the main event scene (in a quick spot he plants seeds for a feud with Steen) Cole can be the midcard babyface to defend his title against Ciampa, Elgin, Strong, Rhino, and anyone else he comes across, and coming off his show stealer with Kyle O’Reilly at Best in the World his stock has never been higher.

–Anyhow, back to the relative present. The main event is the rubber match between Lance Storm and “The Prodigy” Mike Bennett. I’ve covered my thoughts on Storm coming out of retirement to try and get Bennett over a few times, but in all I’m glad to see it blow off and hope it did Bennett as much good as he’s wanted. I don’t reserve the outright loathing for Bennett the way I do with Mike Mondo but I’m still not really all that impressed with him in the ring and, while I can see how a guy like Storm would look at Bennett and think he has something, it’s that kind of talent that other wrestlers like more than what people can see on their TV sets. I have no doubt in my mind that someday Bennett will get signed by WWE, and when he does people will probably assume he’s a better technical wrestler than he is just based on the fact that he came from ROH, so I hope he’s at least learned something from these matches. The problem I really have with both of these guys is it’s all substance and no style (and not that much substance in Bennett’s case), and even the few exciting spots Storm used to pull off regularly are probably behind him. I was more interested in the fact that he came out to a Fozzy song than I was during the match. It wasn’t, per se, a bad match at all. They certainly didn’t embarrass themselves or half ass it at all. But there wasn’t much to make me really focus on it, except a pretty cool top rope neckbreaker from Bennett near the finish. The end came with Maria distracting the ref and Brutal Bob sliding a chair in for Bennett to hit his TKO on for the cheap win, followed by a beatdown broken up by Sara Del Ray and Eddie Edwards, setting up a mixed tag for Boiling Point.

–A solid, if unflashy, effort by ROH this week, and a more exciting drama-filled show last week. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the main event was disappointing, it was just not the kind of action that moves the needle for me. ROH’s TV taping schedule has kind of bitten them in the ass right now, as they’re still airing stuff that was recorded near the peak of summer while they’ve already recorded enough shows to bring them into October, and setting up angles for the next two iPPVs. If you read the spoilers (and it’s not hard to imagine why I don’t) then you’re in this weird floating time frame where a whole quarter of the year seems to be happening all at once; it’s like wrestling as booked by Dr. Manhattan. Anyhow next week’s main event is Jay Lethal teaming with what I think is the last appearance of the All Night Express as they take on Kevin Steen, Jimmy Jacobs, and Steve Corino (in an online video they named themselves S.C.U.M., but I don’t know when that name will make TV) so that should be an exciting one. Until then, don’t take my word for it, go to ROHwrestling.com and check it out for yourself.