ROH Michael Bennett's Bachelor Party: Hosted By Adam Cole Review

Who's ready for a Bachelor Party?!

ROH Unauthorized: Michael Bennett’s Bachelor Party: Hosted By Adam Cole

Merrionette Park, Illinois 10/9/14

So this show is essentially the “spiritual successor” to A Night of Hoopla from 2013 (including both emanating from the same venue). Long story short, Michael Bennett & Maria Kanellis were getting married (I believe) the next day, so Adam Cole decided to throw his stablemate in The Kingdom a Bachelor Party! Cole booked all of the matches (much like Truth Martini booked all of the matches for A Night of Hoopla), so it should be a fun time.

There are balloons in the ring as Adam Cole, the host of the evening’s festivities (with a beer in-hand), makes his way out to kick off the show. He insults the crowd before introducing Steve Corino (the bachelor party’s main commentator), and BJ Whitmer (the bachelor party’s bouncer). He then introduces the newest member of The Kingdom, Matt Taven (who returned as the newest member of The Kingdom at the TV Tapings in West Virginia a few weeks prior), as his co-host. Finally, he introduces the man of the hour, Michael Bennett, who comes out with the Title of Love. Cole & Taven present some gifts to Bennett, which include a crown and light up gloves. Bennett makes a Jerry “The King” Lawler joke, saying that they both wear crowns and both use the piledriver, but unlike Lawler, he didn’t like 15 Year Old girls. They drink some more before we get the first official match.

1.) ROH World Tag Team Champions reDRagon vs. The House of Truth (ROH World TV Champion Jay Lethal & Truth Martini): ***¼

J. Diesel joined Steve Corino on commentary (and wasn’t that good at it), while Adam Cole announces reDRagon as “not as good as Future Shock”. This is a very interesting match. If you recall, back at A Night of Hoopla, reDRagon faced the oddball team of Roderick Strong & Cheeseburger. This time, they’re facing Jay Lethal and….yes….you read that right….Truth Martini!! For those who aren’t aware, Truth Martini used to be a wrestler many years ago, but some significant injuries forced him to retire. This was actually a pretty fun match. Of course you would expect great wrestling from Kyle O’Reilly, Bobby Fish & Jay Lethal, but Truth Martini looked really good as well! They really did a nice job working around his previous injuries. I think Martini even hit some variation of the Canadian Destroyer at one point!! In the end, however, Martini would get caught by a cross armbreaker from O’Reilly, and immediately tapped out, giving the win to reDRagon.

Before the next match, Adam Cole brings out Cheeseburger, and says that, for tonight, he’s an honorary member of The Kingdom.

2.) Six-Women Tag Team Match - Veda Scott, Heather Patera & Leah Von Dutch vs. Taeler Hendrix, Scarlett Bordeaux & “Crazy” Mary Dobson: **3/4

Up next we have a women’s match and, of course, The Romantic Touch comes out to join Steve Corino on commentary. I’ve seen all of these ladies before expect “Crazy” Mary Dobson. This was a solid women’s match, but of course, since it was a women’s match at a bachelor party, we get some shenanigans. I think at one point, Matt Taven just got in the ring and started throwing One Dollar Bills at the women. Despite all the wackiness, the match was fine for what it was. Veda Scott would eventually pick up the win for her team.

After the match, The Kingdom make Cheeseburger drink several shots of liquor, and Cheeseburger, being as small as he is, has a hard time with it.

3.) Loser Can’t Drink - Roderick Strong vs. Mark Briscoe: ***1/4

Bobby Fish joins Steve Corino on commentary for this match. These two have wrestled before, but never before have the steaks been so high! The loser of this match can’t have a single drop of alcohol for the rest of the night. Strong comes out wearing a polo shirt and a tight pair of khaki shorts over his wrestling gear, so he’s dressed to impress! These two never have bad matches against each other, and this one was no different. Lots of solid action between these two. It’s just so hilarious to see Roderick Strong wrestling in that attire! The match ends suddenly when Strong gets the win via small package. Strong celebrates while Mark Briscoe is very upset by the loss, as he can’t have alcohol for the rest of the bachelor party.

Up next, Cole has BJ Whitmer go around and check people’s ID’s. Then, Cole has another surprise for Michael Bennett, as he brings out Bennett’s 2nd favorite wrestler, Mad Man Pondo, who brought out a stop sign with him. He quickly becomes friends with Cheeseburger, and this does not sit well with The Kingdom. Cole then puts the intoxicated Cheeseburger in a match with Tommaso Ciampa. Oh boy...

4.) “Sicilian Psychopath” Tommaso Ciampa vs. Cheeseburger: N/A

Cheeseburger did get a tiny bit of offense in, after getting some liquid courage, but Ciampa destroys him. Pondo tries to make the save with his stop sign, but it backfires and he hits Cheeseburger instead. Ciampa brawls with Pondo and gives him a DDT on the stop sign. The match never really ends (officially), as Ciampa celebrates until Delirious comes out! Cole likes what he sees, and makes a match between the two!

5.) “Sicilian Psychopath” Tommaso Ciampa vs. Delirious: **1/2

For those who remember, this is a match that was actually supposed to take place on an ROH event over three years ago (back when Ciampa was still part of The Embassy). This was a fun little match, filled with shenanigans, including Ciampa wearing a Delirious Mask of his own! Some decent action here, but in the end, Ciampa would get the win.

Before the next match, Adam Cole brings out Jimmy Jacobs, asking him who the biggest buzzkills in the locker room her, and he responded with ACH (who is always playing video games), and Cedric Alexander (because he has a family). He then hyped them up a bit about how good they are in the ring and told them to blow the roof off.

6.) Cedric Alexander vs. ACH: ***1/2

Jacobs joins Corino on commentary, while ACH comes out playing his Nintendo 3DS (I think it was a 3DS), which was pretty hilarious! These two had a really good match. It was better than their Field of Honor Match, which was affected by a botched move that nearly killed ACH. Definitely the best match on this show. After some really solid action, Alexander would eventually get the win over ACH.

Up next, Adam Cole is invites Michael Bennett to the ring for some lap dances. He gets some lap dances from a few girls...and J. Diesel. All of things brings Maria Kanellis out. She berated them for a bit, before stripping down herself and giving a lap dance to one of the girls that was out earlier! Bennett was obviously jealous of this, and has BJ Whitmer break things up. Maria said that Bennett would “have to wait until the honeymoon to get orgasmic”.

7.) ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe vs. Rhino: N/A

Now it’s time for the Main Event, or at least what we thought was the Main Event. Rhino was Cole’s paid mercenary for the night. This is actually an interesting matchup coming in as Rhino was the one who initially injured Jay Briscoe’s shoulder back in early-2013, an injury that would later lead to Jay Briscoe vacating the World Title later that year. Jay Lethal is out on commentary for this one.

The match itself doesn’t go very long before Adam Cole tries to get Rhino to use a chair. Rhino doesn’t want to, and this leads to a scuffle between Rhino & The Kingdom. It’s a 3-on-2 beatdown of Jay Briscoe & Rhino until Mark Briscoe comes down for the save! Jay lays down the challenge, and our new Main Event is a Six-Man Tag.

8.) Six-Man Tag - The Briscoes & Rhino vs. The Kingdom (Adam Cole, Matt Taven & Michael Bennett): **½

The story with this one is that The Kingdom drank so much alcohol over the course of the show that they weren’t in the best shape to compete. There were points where Adam Cole looked like he was going to puke, while Matt Taven really had to use the bathroom. In all the madness, Jay Briscoe was eventually able to hit the Jay Driller to Bennett on the Title of Love to win the match for his team.

Afterwords, Maria was able to sneak back in the ring and take back the Title of Love. Jay Briscoe cuts a promo to close the show, while Mark Briscoe sets off some confetti cannon.

Overall: 7.75/10 (Entertainment Value)

Once again, Ring of Honor delivers another entertaining “Unauthorized” event. While this wasn’t nearly as good as A Night of Hoopla, it was still an enjoyable show to watch, simply because it was different from what you normally get with ROH. Of course, there was a ton of shenanigans with The Kingdom, but we also got some solid matches out of it. reDRagon vs. The House of Truth, Strong vs. Mark Briscoe, and Cedric Alexander vs. ACH were all pretty good matches. The other matches were fun, and if you take that into account with the shenanigans, then it was a pretty fun show on the whole.