ROH Summer Heat Tour: Cincinnati Review

Michael Elgin defends the ROH World Title against Roderick Strong and Kevin Steen goes to war with Silas Young!

For those of you who hate the Todd Sinclair "Twinkies" Chant, then I'm afraid I've got some bad news (There's my Bad New Barrett reference of the day). The chants were out in full force on this show. Should also add that it was refreshing to have Joe Dombrowski on commentary with Steve Corino. Kevin Kelly has great chemistry with Corino, but it's always nice to take a break from him every once & awhile.

ROH Summer Heat Tour: Cincinnati

Cincinnati, Ohio 7/18/14

We open the show with Nigel McGuinness. He announced that Alex Kozlov wasn't able to be there due to injury (which he suffered during New Japan's Best of the Super Juniors Tournament a month or so prior). Instead, Rocky Romero & Tommaso Ciampa will be challenging reDRagon for the ROH World Tag Team Titles, which is up first!

1.) ROH World Tag Team Titles - reDRagon vs. "Sicilian Psychopath" Tommaso Ciampa & Rocky Romero: ***3/4

This was actually a really good match. I wasn't sure how it would go with Ciampa & Romero teaming for the 1st time, but it worked out well. The general consensus is that The Forever Hooligans can get a little repetitive in their tag team matches, so throwing Ciampa in here really freshened things up. Lots of great action throughout in this one. Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly would eventually get the win, and retain their titles.

After the match, Ciampa & Romero get into an argument over the loss, and start brawling before they are eventually broken up.

2.) ROH World TV Title - Jay Lethal (with Truth Martini) vs. The Romantic Touch: ***

The Romantic Touch technically earned a World TV Title Shot after Matt Taven (disguised as The Romantic Touch) beat & made a mockery of Lethal at Road To "Best In The World": Night 2. This was a solid match. Definitely the best match that The Romantic Touch has had in ROH. Solid action in this one. By the way, apparently The Romantic Touch is bisexual (according to commentary). I believe there were some shenanigans towards the end, and I think The Romantic Touch even got unmasked briefly, which led to Lethal getting the win.

3.) Six Man Tag - The Decade (Jimmy Jacobs, BJ Whitmer & Adam Page with TaDarius Thomas) vs. ACH, Cedric Alexander & Caprice Coleman: ***1/2

Up next we have The Decade taking on ACH and a one-night-only reunion of C & C Wrestle Factory. This was another really good trios match involving The Decade vs. Cedric Alexander & Friends. These matches always seem to be really good, and this one was certainly no different. Lots of action throughout this one. We even got some interactions between ACH & TaDarius Thomas. The crowd was into it, and the action was pretty good. Not much else you can ask for. The Decade pick up the win.

4.) No DQ Match - Kevin Steen vs. Silas Young: ****1/4

Here we have the second match of Kevin Steen's "Farewell Tour". Steen wanted revenge against Silas Young after he attacked him after their match at Best In The World. I really enjoyed this. Steen always thrives in these types of environments, so it's no surprise that this match was great. They told a good story, the crowd was into it, and Silas Young looked really good. Eventually, Young would score the victory over Steen in a hard fought affair.

5.) Four Corner Survival - Ethan Gabriel Owens vs. RD Evans (with Veda Scott & Ramon) vs. Moose vs. Matt Taven: ***

A pretty random Four-Corner Survival Match, in terms of who was involved. This was another fun match on this show. It wasn't amazing by any stretch, but it was still pretty entertaining. All four guys got to show off what they can do, and it was fine on the whole. RD Evans would, of course, pick up the win to keep The New Streak going!

Before the next match, Maria Kanellis comes out with The ICONIC Title. She announces that Michael Bennett wouldn't be at the show due to food poisoning, so ROH World TV Champion Jay Lethal would be taking his place.

6.) The Briscoes vs. War Machine: ***

This match was built up a little bit at Aftershock, as these two teams interacted in all of the brawling that occurred. This was a fine tag team match. It was going along nicely until it ended in a No Contest after Adam Cole & Jay Lethal interfered. It sucks that War Machine has had two No Contests in a row, both here and the week before at Aftershock. The match was going fine until the interference. Cole & Lethal were beating up everyone. Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian came out to make the save, leading to the next match...

7.) Adam Cole & Jay Lethal (with Maria Kanellis & Truth Martini) vs. Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian: ***1/4

Of course, as mentioned earlier, Lethal is replacing Michael Bennett, who is out with food poisoning. The match wasn't anything outstanding, but it was still very solid. You're always going to get consistently good matches with Daniels & Kazarian, while I think Cole & Lethal worked pretty well together, especially since they're a throw together tag team. Daniels would eventually pick up the win for his team. War Machine would come out afterwords, and there was a stare down.

8.) ROH World Title - "Unbreakable" Michael Elgin vs. Roderick Strong: ****1/4

Michael Elgin had issued a challenge to any former ROH World Champions to come & challenge him for the title. Roderick Strong, being a former ROH World Champion, quickly answered the call. As expected, this was a really good match. Probably the best match they've had with each other, in ROH or PWG. Didn't get quite to the level of amazing (crowd wasn't into it as much at times), but it was still a great Main Event. Elgin would pick up the win & retains his ROH World Title to close the show.

DVD Bonus Match

Summer Heat Tour: Dearborn (TV Taping)
Dearborn, Michigan 7/19/14

1.) Takaaki Watanabe vs. Tyson Dux: **1/2

I decided to put this hear since it occurred the day after the Cincinnati Show. It's an exclusive match featuring Takaaki Watanabe & Tyson Dux. This was a solid match. Nothing really of note to say about this one. Just a solid match that sees Tyson Dux getting the victory.

Overall: 8.5/10

I thought this was a pretty solid show. There really wasn't not a bad match on here. Everything was, at the very least, entertaining. The top two advertised matches (Elgin/Strong & Steen/Young), in my opinion, delivered, and the undercard was very solid. One thing that I was actually surprised about was that pretty much all of the matches got time. I never felt like any one match didn't get enough time (while one or two may have gotten a tad too much), and I think the match quality reflects that. It was on the whole a really enjoyable show to watch, and the fact that, as I said, all of the matches were at least good, helped.