Ring Of Honor Wrestling Review 4/18/15

By Nathan Neumann (Twitter: @Headliner5)

What’s up Riingers?  Nathan here after taking last week off (due to ROH having a highlights show). This week’s show featured three matches (well, technically two...but we will get to that later) as well as a live in-ring edition of reDRagon’s show “The Fish Tank.” So, without any more delaying from yours truly lets down to business.

The show opens with the traditional ROH video intro from here we get a panoramic view of the arena in which they are emanating tonight before we join the commentary team at the desk. We go over to Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino who welcome us to the show and send it right down to the ring for the first match of the night.

Match 1

Donovan Dijak vs. Dalton Castle

Thoughts: The first match of the night featured a former Eyes On The Ring radio guest as Donovan Dijak 2015’s top prospect winner took on a man who had a great showing in the tournament as well in the form of Dalton Castle.  The match starts out slow with both men trying to get a feel for each other while trading individual flurries of offense. About five minutes into the match, Dijak clotheslines Castle off of the ring apron and Dijak would continue the assault on the outside of the ring. Dijak picks Castle up and Castle comes back with a hurricanranna.

From there Castle rushes back into the ring while Dijak is dazed and runs off of the ropes and at Dijak jumping through the middle rope with a suicide dive that wipes Dijak out.Both men get back into the ring and Dijak finds himself with the advantage once again as he comes off of the top rope with a twisting splash. Castle recovers and starts to get desperate and begins running full steam at Dijak in an attempt to take the big man off of his feet but Castle’s efforts are unsuccessful.

Castle maintains the advantage and while Dijak is on the ground manages to pick Dijak up off of the mat to perform a dead lift German suplex (something another guy in ROH may have some sort of issue with).  Dijak recovers but Castle presses his advantage more by hitting a spinning slam only to have Dijak kick out at two.  Castle makes his way over to the rope near Truth Martini, which allows Truth to grab the leg of Dalton Castle.  This distraction from Truth allows Dijak to grab Castle up and hit Feast Your Eyes to pick up the win via pinfall.

Match Result: Donovan Dijak defeats Dalton Castle via pinfall via Feast Your Eyes
Match Rating: **3/4

After the match, Dalton Castle confronts Truth Martini about what just happened. Castle grabs Martini by the balls. Tere’s a giant blur mark on my TV screen because this show is on basic cable so they apparently can't show ball grabbing. But...from here, we go to the second match of the night

Match 2

War Machine (Raymond Rowe and Hanson) vs. Andy Dalton and Ken Phoenix 

Thoughts: So I guess this is going to be an ongoing thing with War Machine as they try to rebuild the team after Raymond Rowe returned from his motorcycle accident.  This match was a complete squash as Hanson and Rowe were able to win the match quick fashion with their back suplex top rope leg drop combination.  But hey at least I got the jobbers names this week so that’s a plus huh?

Match Result: War Machine defeats Andy Dalton and Ken Phoenix
Match Rating: N/A. A one-minute match doesn’t deserve a rating. Plus, this match wasn’t about producing a rating it was more about re-establishing War Machine as a dominate tag team which they are doing quite well it’s very old school but it works.

From there we head to the ring for a live edition of reDRagon’s talk show which is titled the “Fish Tank."

Fish Tank Segment

Jay Lethal was the guest and Lethal wanted Fish and O’Reilly to promote his brand new Best Of Jay Lethal DVD and he said something about his hot ex-girlfriend which if you know his history it was painfully obvious to me that he was referring to the former AJ Lee. ReDRagon started looking bored and Fish got on the microphone and dropped the gem of a line “Can’t sleep?  Pop in the new Jay Lethal DVD.”

From there Jay Lethal got mad but not mad enough, it basically led to him unveiling a brand new ROH World Television Championship that actually reads ROH World Champion because according to him he’s the World Champion and Jay Briscoe isn’t.  Jay Lethal then goes on to say that Jay Briscoe was born on a highway because that’s where accidents happen.  This brings out Briscoe who takes exception to what Lethal just said and the two men brawl to the back.  The Knights Of The Rising Dawn rush the ring and attack reDRagon as the segment comes to an end.

Thoughts: I’m assuming this is to set up a Champion vs. Champion match at ROH’s next Pay Per View, Best In The World 2015 as Jay Lethal will challenge Jay Briscoe for the title.  We could in fact see Jay Lethal win the World Title and be the first man in the company’s history to hold both the World and TV title’s simultaneously that’s if they don’t have Lethal lose the TV title before possibly winning the world title. If they did this it would add even more credibility to Jay Lethal going forward and bring some new possible feuds to the forefront as well.

From here, we cut to the backstage area for a pre-taped promo where BJ Whitmer says he wants a match with ACH. Then, commercial. We come back from commercial for the main event of the hour.

Main Event – Match 3

Michael Elgin vs. Cedric Alexander 

Thoughts: This match features another former Eyes On The Ring radio guest in Cedric Alexander as he took on Michael Elgin.  The bell rings and the two men circle around the ring and feel each other out.  Elgin finds himself on the outside of the ring early on as Cedric flies over the top rope and on to Elgin wiping Elgin out on the outside of the ring.  Cedric then picks Elgin up off of the ground and rolls him into the ring and makes his way to the top rope once again.  From there Cedric goes for over time but it misses as Elgin moves out of the way, Elgin recovers and hangs Cedric up in on the second rope and hits his signature flipping leg drop to get a near fall on Cedric.  Elgin gets another near fall just moments later after a rope assisted spinning neck breaker.

Cedric recovers and comes off of the top rope with a clotheseline and covers Elgin but only manages to pick up a 2 count.  Cedric still pressing the advantage he has found himself with hits a Michinoku driver and Elgin once again kicks out at 2.  Elgin gets the advantage and runs off the ropes taking out Cedric with a stiff lariat Elgin goes for the cover afterwards but this time Cedric kicks out at 2.  The two men make their way to one of the corners of the ring where they fight for the upper hand, Alexander shoves a tired Elgin into the corner and then runs at him with three back to back to back dropkicks.  Cedric hits overtime once again and Elgin again kicks out at 2.

Elgin comes back and hits Cedric with a Falcon Arrow but Cedric kicks out of it at 2.  Cedric again finds himself with the advantage as he hits Elgin with the lumbar check and pins Elgin but instead of kicking out of the move Elgin gets his foot on the bottom rope just before Todd Sinclair’s hand comes down for the three count thus it only counts for 2.  Elgin gets the advantage once again and finally hits Cedric with the spinning sit out Elgin bomb for the 1-2-3.

Match Result: Michael Elgin defeats Cedric Alexander via pinfall after a spinning sit out Elgin Bomb
Match Rating: ***

After the conclusion of the match Elgin grabs a microphone and announces that he wants everyone to pay for their sins.  He continues by saying that he’s a killer and that he’s going to start digging graves on his way back to the ROH World Title.

That closes out the show which also closes out another one of my ROH reviews for the site.  This show was a lot better structured than the one two weeks ago. Less matches equals more time for said matches. This means that the wrestlers can take their time and not rush their craft.

With the relaxed format as compared to two weeks ago we still got some storyline progression towards Best In The World and it will be interesting to see how things progress going forward as the event gets closer.

But, that will do it for me and another Ring Of Honor television review for EyesOnTheRing.com.  I hope you enjoyed reading this one and I hope you enjoy reading these reviews in general as I do my best to bring you something different and outside of the WWE norm.

Before I wrap this thing up I should tell you to follow me on Twitter at @Headliner5 and also make sure to follow the official Eyes On The Ring account which is located @EyesOnTheRing.  Also make sure to check out EyesOnTheRing.com for more of these reviews from myself as well as everything else that the entire Eyes On The Ring team chooses to write and provide you for your reading pleasure.

In closing, make sure to check out Eyes On The Ring radio this week as we come to you at 11:00PM EST this Sunday night.  We bring you the entire week in wrestling as it happened as well as all of our reactions of the happenings that took place during the week.  Finally make sure to head on over to Facebook.com/EyesOnTheRing and like us.  For now I am Nathan saying so long for now, next week I’ll be back here same review time same review website but in the meantime ringers keep your Eyes On The Ring.

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Eyes on the Ring 9:10 AM  No comment

Nathan's ROH Review: 3/21/15

By Nathan Neumann (Follow Nathan on Twitter at @Headliner5)

Hello Eyes On The Ring faithful, Nathan here with another dose of Honor with your weekly ROH TV review. We’re getting closer to Supercard of Honor IX and this show featured three matches, along with some good progression towards building to SCOH.  The video intro plays and we head into the arena and pan around the building to get a good look at all of the fans in attendance. We go to ringside and Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino who welcome us to the show and they send it immediately to ringside for the first match of the night.

Match 1

Bobby Fish vs. Roderick Strong

Thoughts: The match starts with the two feeling each other out in the early going Roderick gets the upper hand on fish around the three minute mark while Fish is on the ground when he puts him in a surfboard stretch for the submission attempt. Roderick rolls Fish into a pinning predicament for a near fall. Fish recovers and both men stand up, Fish grabs Strong and delivers a suplex for a near fall. Strong kicks out and recovers and hits a backbreaker for a near fall of his own as we go to a commercial break.

Back from commercial and Strong hits Fish with a knee in the corner and then follows it up with a backbreaker for a near fall.  Fish recovers and gets the upper hand momentarily in order to hit a falcon arrow on Strong for a near fall.  Fish hits a tilt a whirl backbreaker and follows it up with a moonsault for a near fall.

Strong recovers and the two men make their way over to one of the corners of the ring, Strong sets Fish up on the top turnbuckle and comes off of the top rope with a superplex. Roderick follows it up with a double knee gut buster for a near fall. The finish of the match came when Roderick Strong comes off of the ropes with a sick kick and follows it up with End Of Heartache to get the win and defeat one half of the current ROH World Tag Team Champions.

Result: Roderick Strong defeats Bobby Fish via pinfall with a Sick Kick followed by The End Of Heartache.

Match Rating: **3/4

We then go into the next match of the night which features the 2015 Top Prospect Tournament winner. It was supposed to be a match between Donovan Dijak (Ed. Note: check out our interview with Donovan tonight on Eyes on the Ring) as he challenged Jay Lethal for the ROH World TV Title. However, that’s not what we got.

Truth Martini got on the microphone and put over Jay Lethal as the greatest first-generation wrestler alive today. Truth then went on to say that he doesn’t want Donovan Dijak to wrestle Jay Lethal in this match...and instead wants him to join the House Of Truth. Dijak thinks it over, and ultimately shakes the hand of Truth Martini making the deal of a lifetime. We now have a new member of the House Of Truth: 2015 Top Prospect winner Donovan Dijak.

From here, Dalton Castle makes his way down to the ring, human chair in tow. Castle gets on the microphone and says that he wants Dijak’s title opportunity and proceeds to challenge Lethal to a match, which Lethal declines at first. However, Castle goads Lethal into it by saying that Lethal wouldn’t fight him that he knows another Jay who will, referring to Jay Briscoe..

Match 2

Dalton Castle vs. Jay Lethal (C)

ROH World Television Championship Match

Thoughts: The match starts and Castle goes on the offense immediately when he hits Lethal with a few punches and delivers a backdrop to the champion as we go to a commercial break.  Back from commercial and we are outside of the ring where Castle whips Lethal into the apron and then catches Lethal coming off of the apron with Huricanranna. Lethal recovers and downs Castle with punches. He then runs into the ring under the bottom rope and runs off of the farthest rope to deliver a suicide dive to Castle not once not twice but three times in a row.

Castle then rolls into the ring and starts getting up as Lethal who at this point has made his way to the top rope comes off and gets caught by Castle. From here, Castle grabs Lethal in a front face lock and delivers a suplex. Castle then takes to Lethal’s back and delivers a German suplex, which gets a near fall for the challenger. After the near fall, Dijak pulls Castle to the outside of the ring and hits him with Feast Your Eyes (a Burning Hammer into a knee). Dijak rolls Castle back into the ring where Castle recovers just long enough to get caught by Jay Lethal who comes off of the ropes with a Lethal Injection to score the victory by pinfall to retain his ROH World Television Championship.

Result: Winner and Still ROH World Television Champion Jay Lethal after defeating Dalton Castle via pinfall after a Lethal Injection.

Match Rating: ***

From here, we go into the main event of the evening for the ROH World Title.

Main Event – Match 3

Jimmy Jacobs vs. Jay Briscoe (C)

ROH World Championship Match

Thoughts: The match starts and Jacobs comes through the ropes to the outside of the ring and hits Briscoe who hasn’t made it into the ring yet. He then capitalizes on the fallen Briscoe by bashing his head into the barricade at ringside. Jacobs climbs the top of the barricade and hits the Contra Code on Briscoe. Jacobs rolls Briscoe back into the ring. Later, Briscoe, who’s recovered, picks Jacobs up in a press slam position, drops Jacobs on his shoulders and then follows through with a Death Valley Driver. Briscoe gets up and waits for Jacobs to recover in order to deliver a neckbreaker and a near fall.

Jacobs kicks out and recovers long enough to hit a desperation spear on Briscoe to get a near fall. Jacobs hits a flurry of offensive maneuvers with a Contra Code, a Sliced Bread, and a Spear and then finishes off the sequence by locking on a submission hold. The referee checks Briscoe’s hand but it comes up before dropping for the third time signaling for the match to continue. Jay Briscoe recovers and hits Jacobs with a Jay Driller to score the pinfall victory and retain his championship.

Result: Winner and still ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe via pinfall after a Jay Driller.

Match Rating: ***

After the match, both men recover and stand face to face in the ring and shake each other’s hands as the show goes off of the air for the week.

That’ll do it for me and another one of my Ring Of Honor Wrestling TV Reviews for EyesOnTheRing.com.  In closing make sure to follow myself @Headliner5 as well as the official Eyes On The Ring account @EyesOnTheRing on twitter.  Also be sure to check out the site for more ROH reviews as well as other great content from the rest of the EOTR team.

In closing, be sure to check out the radio show each and every Sunday night over at blogtalkradio.com/ElitePodcastNetwork as we come to you at 11:00pm Eastern Time.  This week we are having the 2015 Top Prospect Winner Donovan Dijak on the show as we present Part Two of our ROH Showcase. Finally don’t forget to like us on facebook at Facebook.com/EyesOnTheRing. For now, I am Nathan saying so long for now and I will see you right back here next week.

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Eyes on the Ring 3:57 PM  No comment

Ring of Honor for Review February 7th

Ring Of Honor Wrestling Review 2/7/15

By Nathan Neumann (Twitter: @Headliner5)

Hello Eyes On The Ring readers. Welcome to February 2015 as Ring Of Honor is on the road to Las Vegas and their upcoming 13th Anniversary show on March 1st live and only on Pay Per View. This week’s show had some interesting developments on the road to Vegas so let’s get down to business.

We opened this week with the brand new Ring Of Honor Wrestling video intro (it’s about two weeks old, but still. It’s cool and it’s current). We go inside of the arena where Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino are at ringside to welcome us. We are also joined by Caprice Coleman in the booth. We then go to the ring and the first match of the night.

Out first is Donovan Dijak who makes his way down to the ring accompanied by an exceptional pop from the crowd.  Out next is his opponent for the evening in Ashley Sixx, which brings us to our first match of the evening.

Match 1

Donovan Dijak vs. Ashley Sixx

Semifinal match in the 2015 Top Prospect Tournament

Result: Donovan Dijak defeats Ashley Sixx via pinfall after a Burning Hammer knee to the face to advance to the finals of the 2015 Top Prospect Tournament.

Thoughts: The match started with both men feeling each other out in the early going. Things picked up when Dijak caught Sixx out of thin air with a back breaker on the outside of the ring. Dijak then threw Sixx back into the ring to get a near fall.  Later on Dijack hit Sixx with a spinning big boot for another near fall (Hanson does something similar but Dijack does it better). Sixx comes back and mounts some offense of his own when he gets Dijak in a bent over position. He then goes to the top rope and delivers a senton landing on Dijak’s back which forces Dijack to fall to his stomach. From there, Sixx gets a near fall.

The finish to the match came when Donovan Dijak picks up Ashley Sixx and delivers a Knee to the face from a burning hammer position and pins him for the 1-2-3 after the move.  This match was very good both guys really showed me something and although Sixx didn’t win he will go places whether it’s in Ring Of Honor or somewhere else.  Dijak impressed as well getting the pinfall victory and advancing to the finals of the tournament.

Match Rating: **1/2

Match 2

Beer City Bruiser vs. Will Ferrara

Semifinal match in the 2015 Top Prospect Tournament

Result: Will Ferrara defeats Beer City Bruiser via pinfall with a knee buster to advance to the finals of the 2015 Top Prospect Tournament.

Thoughts: Ugh, This match was full of Beer City Bruiser doing a lot of things that he shouldn’t have been doing. On the other hand, this allowed a much smaller guy to do things to him that he shouldn’t have let happen.  At one point in the match Bruiser dropped Ferrara face first onto one of the turnbuckles as Ferrara was standing on the middle rope.  Ferrara recovers and tries to body slam the much bigger Bruiser but Bruiser falls on top of Ferrara for a near fall. From here, Beer City Bruiser clotheslines Ferrara over the top rope to the outside of the ring.  Bruiser follows it up with a senton to the outside of the ring but misses.  Ferrara hops up on the apron and hits a picture perfect tornado DDT to the outside.  The finish of the match came when both men were back inside of the ring and Will Ferrara hits Beer City Bruiser with a knee buster to advance to the finals of the 2015 top prospect tournament.  This match wasn’t as bad as Beer City Bruiser’s first round match but it wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination.

Match Rating: *3/4

Now that Beer City Bruiser is out of the tournament hopefully ROH is smart and doesn’t bring him back because he doesn’t fit the mold of Ring Of Honor in my opinion.

Backstage Segment

Back from commercial and reDRagon makes their way out to the ring with both the ROH World Tag Team Title’s and the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title’s in tow for a live edition of the Fish Tank.  Their guests were their opponents at ROH’s 13th Anniversary show the Young Bucks. There wasn’t much to this.  At one point Kyle O’Reilly referred to Bobby Fish as his “Life Partner” but then changed his mind and said Tag Team Partner. The Young Bucks came out and had some words with the champions.  Matt and Nick both hit a bunch of super kicks (again over using the move per the usual) but this wasn’t too bad and it was a nice way to build to their upcoming match in Vegas. I can’t wait to see that match live as their match at last year’s War Of The Worlds was absolutely fantastic and hopefully this one can deliver like that one did. Commercial break.

Back from commercial break and Tommaso Ciampa says that next week Jimmy Jacobs will find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Next week, Tommaso looks to gain some momentum towards Las Vegas and the Fatal Four Way match for the ROH World Title.

QT Marshall makes his way to the ring and he gets on the microphone and says “There’s never been a star bigger than QT Marshall.”  Is he serious?  I’m not buying it, but we go to the next match.

Match 3

QT Marshall vs. Roderick Strong

Result: Roderick Strong defeats QT Marshall via pinfall after a Sick Kick

Thoughts: Literally nothing to see here. All that happened in this match was the finish to said match. Moving along…

Match Rating: N/A

Roderick Strong gets on the microphone and says he wants BJ Whitmer so I’m assuming that this will be another match made for the 13th Anniversary show.

We get a promo from Michael Bennett and Maria Kanellis where Michael Bennett calls ODB a man and seriously Michael Bennett is my new favorite wrestler with this comment…which brings us to our main event.

Main Event – Match 4

Michael Bennett, Matt Taven, and Maria Kanellis vs. The Briscoes and ODB.

Result: Michael Bennett, Matt Taven, and Maria Kanellis defeat The Briscoes and ODB when Bennett and Taven super kick ODB’s head off (which allows Maria to swoop in and pick up the pinfall victory).

Thoughts: This match was crazy and a lot was going on. My apologies if this part of the review doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. To start things off, Jay Briscoe tags into the match and uppercuts the hell out of Michael Bennett’s face.  Jay puts Bennett down with a super kick on the outside and then Mark comes off of the apron with an elbow drop.  From here Adam Cole makes his way down to the ring with a sling on his left shoulder.  He goes to the announcers table and says literally nothing.  Meanwhile, back in the ring Matt Taven, hits a flying drop kick on Mark Briscoe and pulls a fallen Maria over for the pin, which only gets a 2 count.  Mark recovers and takes Michael Bennett’s head off with a lariat out of the corner for another near fall. Mark tags in Jay and Michael tags in Matt and Jay delivers a swinging neck breaker for a two count.  From there Michael Bennett spears Mark Briscoe off of the apron.  Mark recovers after a little bit and Mark and Jay both get Michael and Matt up on their shoulders from there ODB tries to dive off of the top rope but Maria breaks it up and doesn’t allow it to happen.  The finish came when Bennett and Taven deliver a duel super kick to ODB’s face, which allows for Maria to pick up the pinfall victory.

Match Rating: **3/4

Maria celebrates with Taven and Bennett as the show goes off of the air for the week.

That will do it for me and this review of Ring Of Honor wrestling television.  This was an overall good show with really three matches on it but there was a lot of progression towards March 1st and the 13th anniversary show, which is great to see.  The only match I had a problem with was the second match between Beer City Bruiser and Will Ferrara.  I hope that now that Beer City Bruiser has been eliminated from the tournament that ROH realizes that he isn’t very good and gets rid of him. 

I would definitely recommend watching Donovan Dijak vs. Ashley Sixx as well as the main event. But, the rest was pretty much filler.

Until next week readers I am Nathan saying so long for now and be sure to keep your Eyes On The Ring for all of the great content that we promise to provide with you in the present and future. Be sure to follow Eyes On The Ring on twitter @EyesOnTheRing as well as myself @Headliner5.  Last but certainly not least be sure to check out EyesOnTheRing.blogspot.com your hope for all things wrestling.  Also don’t forget to tune into our weekly radio show each and every Sunday night over at blogtalkradio.com/EyesOnTheRing at 11:00pm Eastern Time.  Last but not least be sure and like us on facebook at Facebook.com/EyesOnTheRing tell them Nathan sent ya.

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Eyes on the Ring 12:44 PM  No comment