Ring of Honor – March 16th, 2016

Howdy!

Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way here….

Notable news from around the world of ROH this week:

–The matches for Supercard of Honor have started trickling in. Night 1 currently has the following signed:

*The Motor City Machine Guns vs The Young Bucks
*Adam Cole vs ACH
*Roderick Strong vs Moose
*Matt Sydal vs Kyle O’Reilly (At this point, I must say ‘damn you!’ to NXT for booking Zayn/Nakamura, which is the main reason I’m missing Night 1, because DAMN, that should be a good match!)

Night 2 is the TV taping, and I’ll hold off on posting those matches, as I didn’t even want to know before they inadvertently got spoiled for me since I never read spoilers, but I am PSYCHED about one of the matches. You all can guess which one if you seek it out.

Let’s watch some wrestling, shall we?

Ring of Honor TV – 3/16/16

Tonight, we’ve got a different type of show; a tag team gauntlet! 7 teams, with one of them winning a title shot in the near future. Spoiler – the match takes up most of the hour tonight, so we’ll break them down into the individual matches as we go along, and give a big ol’ honking grade at the end of it all. ROH likes to (justifiably, in my view) brag about how amazing their tag division is, so let’s see what they’ve got!

We are TAPED from the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee! Your hosts are Kevin Kelly and Corino Wrestling 3. And we’re wasting no time tonight, as our first camera shot is played in by the music of reDRagon! That’s how all wrestling shows should start, seriously. Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish have drawn unlucky number 1 in our tag gauntlet tonight, but we’ll see if they can pull this off. And our second team is Will Ferrara and Caprice Coleman! Winning team stays out there, losing team goes. Time to get this party started, folks!

reDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) vs Caprice Coleman & Will Ferrara – Tag Team Gauntlet, Match 1

Code of Honor is followed. O’Reilly and Will start us off, trading go-behinds. Kyle takes him down and they do a nice wrestling sequence attempting armbars before they stand up. Will decides that he’s a big boy now, so he shoves Kyle. Kyle responds with a shove of his own, then a kick to the midsection. Kyle takes him down with a wristlock, but Will makes the ropes to break before O’Reilly can go for a kimura. Kyle looks to give a clean break, but decides that he’d rather hit him with a knee to the gut. They trade forearms and Kyle reverses a whip to the corner, but he eats a boot from Will on a charge and Ferrara comes off with a ‘rana. Whip by Will, but Kyle hooks the ropes and Ferrara hits the mat on a dropkick. O’Reilly tries to get a jumping stomp, but Ferrara moves and they trade hands, with Kyle taking the poor boy to school, ending with a legsweep to put Will on the mat. Tag to Fish, and he comes in with knees and a snapmare, followed by an inside-out senton to Ferrara. That gets two. Will tries to fight up, but Bobby cuts that off with a kick and tags Kyle back in. Fish and O’Reilly tee off on poor Will in the corner with knees, then a double suplex that Kyle floats over on for a two count. Running kneedrop out of the corner gets two for Kyle. He sends Will back to the reDRagon corner and tags Fish back in, as they cut the ring in half. This is a clinic in tag wrestling. Fish with shots to the midsection and jumping belly to back suplex on Will. That gets two. Will gets tossed in the reDRagon corner again, and another tag to Kyle. O’Reilly comes in with a boot to Coleman in the corner, but that proves to be a mistake as he eats knees from Will on a charge, and Ferrara somersaults past Fish to finally make the tag to Caprice. Coleman in with a clothesline on Fish, then punches to Kyle. Fish tries to come back, but Coleman blocks and gets a reverse axe kick on Bobby. Kyle charges, but eats what could be called an STO from Coleman. Caprice springboards out with a plancha to Fish on the floor, as Coleman is cleaning up here. Kyle gives chase and tries to send Caprice to the post, but Coleman do-si-dos around it and slides back through with a kick to Kyle. Will wants to fly now, and he gets a tope on O’Reilly on the floor. They toss Fish back in and Coleman gets a tag to Will, they send Bobby to the corner. Caprice charges, but he eats a boot; Will charges, but he gets elevated over the top rope all the way to the floor. Fish and Coleman are left now, and Bobby takes charge by taking Caprice to the corner with a shoulder, and Kyle comes back in for the 2-Man Smash Machine in the corner, with the tilt-a-whirl backbreaker into the second rope kneedrop finishing the sequence. Ferrara back in now and Fish catches him with a jawbreaker. Bobby attempts to take him over into an armbar, but when Will blocks that Fish calmly switches to the knee and wraps him up in a kneebar. Kyle takes care of Coleman, and Will doesn’t last much longer before tapping. (reDRagon over Caprice Coleman & Will Ferrara, submission, 5:38)

And there’s the music of the House of Truth! Is Lethal going to wrestle in this? And that would be a nope, as Truth is out with Joey Daddiego and a wrestler I don’t recognize. This might not go well for them, but let’s see what Martini has to say. Truth runs down Donovan Dijak; hey Truth, that’s my job! Anyway, he introduces us to Chris Larusso, who is apparently not only a martial arts expert, but he’s also a lawyer! That gets boos from the crowd, so heh. Truth explains how this is going to work; if Larusso does well, he gets the thumbs up! If he does badly, he gets the thumbs down and he goes down. Okey-doke. We’ll find out how that goes after these ads!

We’re back!

reDRagon vs The House of Truth (Joey Daddiego & Chris Larusso) – Tag Team Gauntlet, Match 2

Fish and Larusso start us off, with Chris getting an early armdrag on Bobby. Fish responds with two of his own. Bobby wrings the arm and hangs on after a Larusso attempt to break, but Chris fires kicks to Bobby’s head to get the break. Fish goes to town on him with kicks and tries to go back to the armbar, but Larusso locks the hands. He tries to stand up out of the hold, but Fish once again just trips him and slaps on the kneebar, but Larusso makes the ropes. Bobby boots him into the corner and tags in Kyle. O’Reilly flattens him with a kick and tags Bobby back in. These goofs have pretty much zero chance against reDRagon here, and it shows. Bobby stands him up and hits him with a kick of his own, and we’re back to Kyle. They repeat the sequence and tags as Larusso is taking an almost literal shit-kicking in there. Chris tries to fight back, but Kyle just knocks him silly with forearms, takes him down with a double leg and mounts him with palm shots. He slaps on the armbar and that finally brings Daddiego in the ring for a pretty awkward save. Larusso makes the tag, and Joey’s in against O’Reilly with shots. He works Kyle over with knees and makes a tag to Chris, powerslamming Kyle before he leaves the ring. Chris with a big jumping legdrop that gets one. He puts a facelock on Kyle and tags Joey back in, and he takes Kyle to the corner with shots. Back elbow by Joey to Fish in the corner and he goes back to work on Kyle, but Kyle fights out and just starts kicking Joey in the face. It’s glorious. The last kick gets caught by Joey and he powerbombs Kyle, but Kyle grabs the arm and turns it into a triangle. Daddiego gets out of that with a sitout powerbomb on Kyle. Tag to Fish, and he comes with a sliding clothesline on Joey. Fish whips him corner to corner, following with knees on each, then gets a running tackle on Joey. Fireman’s Carry by Fish is wiggled out of by Joey, but Fish drops down and takes Joey into the kneebar, which brings Chris in for the save. Joey tags Chris back in and holds Bobby up, but Fish ducks a sidekick and Larusso takes Joey out. They trade kicks and Fish gets a jumping knee to take Chris down. Both guys crawl for the tag….but Joey shorts the tag to Chris as Martini gives the thumbs down. Well, that takes their chances for winning the match to less than zero, as Truth and Joey take a walk, leaving Chris alone against reDRagon. That goes about as well as you might expect, with Kyle O’Reilly teeing off on the poor bastard, finishing him with a guillotine. (reDRagon over The House of Truth, submission, 5:52)

Well, that’s two down for reDRagon! Who’s next? That would be….the Young Bucks! This could be fun, these teams work well together. They make sure to flatten Larusso with a superkick on the way to the ring as he tries to leave. Well, that’ll learn him. It’s the Bucks vs reDRagon, and that’s up….after these ads!

We’re back!

reDRagon vs The Young Bucks – Tag Team Gauntlet, Match 3

We get a ‘This is awesome’ chant before the match starts. For this match, I deem this appropriate. The Bucks start by shoving reDRagon, and they get shoved right back. The Bucks tell reDRagon to suck it, and it’s on. The teams fire forearms at each other, the Bucks back up, superkicks are caught in stereo and turned into anklelocks by Fish and O’Reilly! Excellent. The Bucks should just tap right here, I’d lose my shit. The Bucks kick them off, then get kicks to the guts of reDRagon, followed by an alley-oop double dropkick by Nick Jackson to send reDRagon out to the floor. Stereo topes by the Bucks put Bobby and Kyle down again. Back in the ring now, it’s Matt Jackson and Kyle. Matt goes for the superkick, but Kyle catches this one and hands the foot off to Nick, then gets the double dragon-screw legwhip on the Bucks. Tag to Fish, who takes the Bucks to opposite corners, shoulder first. He misses a charge on Matt and Nick follows from behind with a high knee to the face. Kyle comes back in now, as we’re basically working under tornado rules here, and gets a DDT to Nick. He blocks a Matt superkick and tries for a suplex, but Matt reverses in midair to a stunner, which was admittedly awesome. The Bucks get the cannonball/kick to the head combo on Fish who’s slumped in a corner and set up for the swanton, but Kyle comes up from behind and puts a sleeper on Matt. Nick goes for the swanton anyway, but Fish puts the knees up and kicks Matt while Kyle holds him. Chasing the Dragon attempt, but Matt floats over and grabs Kyle from behind; Kyle ducks and Fish levels Matt with a lariat. O’Reilly charges Nick on the apron but gets dumped, and Nick shoulders a charging Fish and comes in with a facebuster on Bobby. He tries to flip to the apron for the moonsault, but Kyle moves and goes to work on Nick on the floor. Combination by Kyle and he goes for the legsweep, but Nick flips over it. He goes for the superkick but Kyle catches it AGAIN and turns it into an ankle lock on the floor! Notice how much smoother the match is but also how TEASING the superkick is starting to rile the crowd up, as opposed to hitting 12 of them in 30 seconds. Matt breaks up the anklelock with a kick through the ropes, he skins the cat and comes in charging Fish, who catches him and gets an exploder in the corner. Everyone is down, so this seems as good a time as any to take an ad break!

We’re back with Kyle O’Reilly dropping knees on Matt Jackson, taking him to the corner and tagging in Fish. Bobby goes to work on the arm with a wringer, an elbow, and a jumping back suplex. That gets two as we’re apparently back to regular tag rules here. Tag to O’Reilly as the commentators talk about the cardio of reDRagon, and it shows – O’Reilly is barely breathing heavy here. Tag back to Fish and they just wear Matt Jackson out with knees to the midsection in the corner. Kyle sends him cross-corner, but Matt gets the boots up and comes off the top rope with a Diamond Dust variant to put Kyle down. Tags are made on both sides, and Nick Jackson comes in, house afire. Clotheslines on Fish from Nick, then a springboard dropkick to Kyle on the apron to send him to the floor. He shoots Fish into the ropes, but Bobby holds on and avoids the superkick, sliding to the outside. Nick flips to the apron and tries the running kick, which Fish avoids, then Bobby tries to take Nick’s legs out, which Nick avoids, and now Nick gets the running kick from the apron. I am NOT doing some of these sequences justice. This is wonderful tag team wrestling right now. Nick tosses Bobby back in and goes up but the swanton misses, and Bobby gets a Samoan Drop and everyone is down again. Tags on both sides again, and Kyle comes in with a rolling double underhook suplex on Matt. He gets another one, and now he and Fish set up for the wheelbarrow suplex, but Nick breaks that up. Nick runs off Matt’s hands and gets Sliced Bread #2 on Fish. Running knee that could generously be called a Shining Wizard sends Fish to the floor, and now the Bucks want a superkick party for Kyle. O’Reilly catches the foot of Nick and sends it at Matt, followed by kicks of his own to Nick. Nick gets a back elbow to send Kyle to the ropes, but he tries to come out with the Ambrose clothesline and the Bucks FINALLY get a double superkick on Kyle to pop the crowd! They teased it the entire match, and that makes it SO MUCH BETTER when they finally hit it. More Bang for Your Buck is going to do it for a valiant Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish. (Young Bucks over reDRagon, pinfall, 6:55)

That was GREAT.

Anyway, must be time for another team! And that team is Brutal Bob Evans and Tim Hughes! Why did I put an exclamation point there? These guys are gonna get killed. And we’ll get to witness that killing after the following ads!

We’re back!

The Young Bucks vs Brutal Bob Evans & Tim Hughes – Tag Team Gauntlet, Match 4

Bob and Tim confer outside the ring and seem to agree on a plan, so they both charge the ring….right into superkicks from the Bucks. They take a breather and confer again, and the brilliant plan this time is to FAKE the charge into the ring and when the Bucks come after them with the superkicks, they grab them and pull them to the floor….where they promptly get superkicked again by the Bucks. Now normally, I’d complain about the Bucks resorting to their usual dumb fuckery after having a great match against reDRagon, but this one is purely for comedy and works in that context. The Bucks toss Hughes back in and Nick misses big corner splash, allowing Hughes to hit the sideslam. He gets Matt up for one, but just keeps spinning around and Nick superkicks him. Why not? Brutal Bob comes in and hits some Brutal offense (Ha! I kill me.) with a devastating kick to the shins on Nick and a kick to the quad of Matt. The Bucks correctly choose to sell none of this crap, and when Bob tunes up the band they hit him with a double superkick to send him to the floor. They load up Hughes and get the powerbomb/enzuigiri combo in the corner, followed by a swanton for the pin. (Young Bucks over Brutal Bob Evans & Tim Hughes, pinfall, 3:01) Okay, that was funny, I’ll give them that.

And our next team out is….The Addiction! I’m guessing that this might be more competitive. The Bucks are waiting for them to come out, but the Addiction come through the crowd and clobber the Bucks from behind!

The Young Bucks vs The Addiction (Frankie Kazarian & Christopher Daniels) Tag Team Gauntlet, Match 5

The Addiction destroy the Bucks to start, pairing off and beating them from pillar to post. They double team Nick with an inverted atomic drop and an STO from Daniels. Now over to Matt, with a double arm-wringer, they force him to his knees and Kaz gets a kick to the chest, a clothesline to the back of the head by Daniels, and a jumping foot stomp from Kaz. They toss Matt and mock the Young Bucks’ pose. Ooohhh. Nick tries to mount a comeback, but they get a double kick to the gut and they pick Nick up by his arms and slam him to the mat from a double-crucifix position. They showboat some more and Frankie tries to spring out onto Matt on the floor, but Matt avoids it and superkicks Frankie. Daniels is in the ring setting Nick up for the Angel’s Wings, so Matt comes in and superkicks him too. Nick falls into a jackknife cover….for the pin? Whoa. (Young Bucks over the Addiction, pinfall, 1:58)

That did not go as I expected. And indeed, the Addiction is mighty pissed off at this turn of events, and here comes the beatdown. Celebrity Rehab on Matt Jackson as the music of Roppongi Vice hits! Hmmm, I expected the Briscoes, honestly. They hit the ring, but the Addiction doesn’t really care and now it’s Vice vs the Addiction! Roppongi Vice finally clears the ring of Daniels and Kaz, and here comes the refs to make sure the Addiction doesn’t get back in there.

The Young Bucks vs Roppongi Vice (Rocky Romero & Trent Baretta) – Tag Team Gauntlet, Match 6

Roppongi and the Addiction are still having words, so Nick Jackson comes up from behind and rolls Romero up for two to start us off. Hey, they SAVED you guys! That’s fucked up, Bucks. Baretta tries to take over with a tornado DDT on Nick, but he gets thrown off and faceplants on the mat. Nick goes over the back of Trent to hit Rocky with a sidekick. Nick wants a tag, but Matt is still out in a fetal position on the floor. And that seems like as good a time as any to take an ad break!

We’re back with Matt standing outside the ring, both members of Roppongi on the mats below him. Guess he recovered. Matt tosses Rocky back in and fires rights, pausing in-between each one to crotch chop. I really, REALLY want to hear Jesse Ventura call a Young Bucks match. I think he’d use the word ‘showboating’ more times than he ever did for the Rockers. Matt tries to come off the ropes, but Rocky nails him with a European uppercut. Good! Damn whippersnappers. Sliced Bread attempt is caught by Matt in a tombstone position, and the Bucks look for the Indytaker, but Trent pulls Nick off the apron. Nick ducks a clothesline and gets a spin kick to Trent on the floor. Meanwhile, Rocky rolls through into a pin, but Matt does the same and gets two. Clothesline attempt misses and Romero tries for a ‘rana, but Matt catches him and the Bucks get the powerbomb/kick combo in the corner. The Bucks set up for More Bang for Your Buck, but Rocky gets out and kicks Matt. Whip attempt is countered as Matt gets him in tombstone position again, Nick looks to come off but Matt gets taken over by Romero and sent to the corner, crotching Nick on the top rope. Enzuigiri by Rocky on Matt is ducked, but Romero gets the spinkick to the head coming back. Big right hand on Nick and Rocky goes up, but he gets caught trying to ‘rana Nick off the top and Matt comes across the ring with a kick to the upside-down body of Rocky. More Bang for Your Buck attempted again, but Trent blindtags Rocky while they’re near the Vice corner. Rolling fireman’s carry hits, but Nick eats the knees on the splash and Trent comes across the ring, trying to German Matt off the top. Matt lands on his feet, but a superkick attempt is countered into Strong Zero by Roppongi Vice for the 1,2,3. (Roppongi Vice over Young Bucks, pinfall, 3:19)

WORTH WATCHING? Well. First things first, more than 26 minutes was aired in this match, I’d guess that the whole thing was probably about 35 or so. There was definitely a few time jumps in there, most noticeably in the last match. So let’s look at what we got. First, the match was divided into two parts, with reDRagon getting the first part and the Bucks getting the second, the match between the two teams being the fulcrum. They had some good wrestling in there for sure, and some not so good wrestling; they also tossed in a comedy match to calm the crowd down, but I’m not in love with the finish. It seems as though they want another team to feed to War Machine to make whoever wins the titles look good once they finally do, which is fine. But Roppongi Vice looks like fools on two levels; first off, they’re ostensibly heels in the match against the Bucks, why wouldn’t they wait for Daniels and Kaz to finish before going in the ring? Second, almost everything they did that was aired was countered by the Bucks before Roppongi hit their finisher to win out of nowhere, so they just look lucky. The story of the match had a definite flow from reDRagon into the Bucks, and I think that after that, it seemed to fall off a bit. Going into the comedy stuff with Hughes and Evans was fine, but why give the Addiction less than two minutes after that? Whatever the case may be, YES, this match had a ton of good tag team work, but it’s long and has problems in spots; still worth watching.

Post-match, Roppongi Vice celebrates their win and future demolition at the hands of War Machine. But before we go this week, Kevin Kelly reminds us that starting next week, we get to see ROH wrestlers job to NJPW wrestlers as we’ll see Okada, Kushida, Goto, Ishii, Tanahashi, and more! And to see an example of that, let’s go back to last year and see the last three minutes of the Briscoes vs Okada & Nakamura. Okada wins for his team with the Rainmaker, by the way. And now, we’re out.

FINAL THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Well, you know how sometimes they say ‘it’s a one-match show?’ This is the literal definition of that. With Supercard of Honor looming, they set nothing up this week. I think that’s probably a function of the show not being on PPV this year, but still. This week is all about the tag team gauntlet, and your enjoyment of the show completely hinges on that. Better than last week, to be sure.

As always, thanks for reading this thing I wrote,

Rick Poehling
@MrSoze on Twitter