ROH continues to celebrate their 14th Anniversary with an interesting night of TV Tapings!
Now this review is going to be handled a little differently. ROH will occasionally release a set of TV Tapings on DVD. Usually, they do this because a TV Taping features a ton of New Japan talent, and that was the case here. What I'm going to do with this DVD is that I'm just going to post my star ratings for the matches that took place during these TV Tapings. Interesting enough, it was right around this time that I started writing reviews of ROH TV for Voices of Wrestling, so in this review, I'll include links to those review so you could read my thoughts on these episodes in full. I should note that I started with the second episode that was taped, so I have no written review for the episode that featured those matches in the first episode.
ROH 14th Anniversary Show (TV Tapings)
Las Vegas, Nevada 2/27/16
Bonus Match
1.) Brian Kendrick vs. Will Ferrara: **1/4
TV Tapings
1.) ROH World TV Title - Tomohiro Ishii vs. Cedric Alexander (with Veda Scott): ***1/4
2.) The Briscoes vs. Reno SCUM: **1/2
3.) Hiroshi Tanahashi & “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin vs. The Young Bucks: ****
4.) Four-Corner Survival Match - Adam Page vs. Matt Sydal vs. Moose (with Stokely Hathaway) vs. Roderick Strong: ***
5.) Cheeseburger vs. Foxx Vinyer: N/R
6.) ROH World Title - Jay Lethal (with Truth Martini) vs. Hirooki Goto: **
8.) Adam Cole vs. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion KUSHIDA: ****¼
9.) The Addiction vs. The Motor City Machine Guns: ***½
10.) ROH World Tag Team Titles - War Machine vs. Roppongi Vice: ***1/2
11.) ACH vs. IWGP Intercontinental Champion Kenny Omega: ***½
12.) Fight Without Honor - Dalton Caste vs. Silas Young: ***¾
Overall: 8.0/10
Here are the links to the full reviews I wrote on Voices of Wrestling for the episodes of ROH TV that featured these matches, aside from the first episode (the first three matches listed), which I didn't review for the site:
Jay Lethal defends the ROH World Title against Adam Cole & Kyle O'Reilly in a Triple Threat Match!!
ROH14th
Anniversary Show(PPV)
Las Vegas, Nevada 2/26/16
Pre-Show
1.) Four-Corner Survival – Cheeseburger vs. Gedo vs. Silas Young
vs. Will Ferrara: **1/2
It seems odd to have a guy like Silas Young in a match after
having several matches on PPV with Dalton Castle, as part of their long
rivalry, but realistically, there was no room on the PPV for any of these guys.
At least they got something, so that’s good. As a whole, this was a very simple
match. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. It was completely average and
totally inoffensive. Young pinned Cheeseburger after hitting Misery.
PPV
1.) ROH World TV Title – Triple Threat Match – Tomohiro Ishii vs.
Roderick Strong vs. Bobby Fish: ***1/2
Originally, this was scheduled to be a singles match for the ROH
World TV Title between Roderick Strong & Bobby Fish, but a week prior to
this PPV, Tomohiro Ishii defeated Strong in the main event of Honor Rising 2016: Night 1 in Korakuen
Hall. Thus, we now have a second Triple Threat Match on this card. I thought it
was a pretty good opening match. There was some very solid action throughout,
though I do feel that the match could have been even better if it got more time
(as it only went eight or nine minutes). With nine matches booked for the show,
certain matches were going to get shortchanged, and this was one of those.
There was a notable botch during the match. Ishii hit a powerbomb on Fish, and
went for the pin. Then, I guess Fish forgot to kick out, because the referee
stopped his count before he got to three, and Fish kicked out a second or two
later. Something was definitely mistimed there, and it looked really bad. Other
than that botch, I found this to be a very enjoyable opening contest. Ishii
would retain his title after pinning Strong.
2.) Adam Page vs. BJ Whitmer: *1/2
During the month of January, Adam Page (with partial influenced
by Steve Corino) turned on BJ Whitmer, seemingly signaling the end of The
Decade in ROH. Coming in, I figured this had the potential to be pretty decent,
but when the dust settled, it ended up being worse that I was expecting. This
was not very good at all. It wasn’t necessarily the fact that the wrestling
itself was bad, because there were a few good moments here and there (almost
all of them from Page). There were three main factors that really hurt this and
made it worthy of the rating I gave it. Firstly, this crowd in Las Vegas just
didn’t give a shit about either guy. They were silent for most of this match.
Secondly, the finish was just atrocious for multiple reasons.
Page brought some chairs into the ring towards the end of the match, though
they weren’t you’re traditional folding chairs. Instead they were normal
convention hall chairs that had solid backs and couldn’t be folded. Referee
Todd Sinclair took them away, which allowed Whitmer to roll up Page for the
win. It was just a terrible finish because it was incredibly clunky, and having
Whitmer go over was the wrong decision. If you’re going to put this on PPV,
shouldn’t you put the younger star over?
Finally, to put it bluntly, this match went waaaay too long. I
get that you wanted to do this match, and it makes sense to do it (given the
breakup of The Decade) but given how many matches were on this card, this
clearly didn’t need to be here, and it didn’t need to go as long as it did. If
you insisted on doing this PPV match, it should’ve been a quick squash with
Page getting the win. If you took this off the PPV, you could’ve given that
time to a match (or matches) that really needed it.
After the match, Page tried to hit Right of Passage on Whitmer,
but he escaped. Page then beat up a bunch of security guys. If you did all of
this on TV, it would’ve been passable, but on PPV? It was completely
unnecessary.
3.) Dalton Castle vs. Hirooki Goto: ***1/4
I honestly didn’t have that many expectations for this one going
in. It was a last-minute addition to the card (Goto had originally been
scheduled to face Ishii in a singles match before Ishii won the ROH World TV
Title), and with nine matches on the card, I didn’t know how much time this
would end up getting. This ended up being a pretty solid undercard match. They
got just under ten minutes, and similar to other matches on this card, it
would’ve benefited if it got a little bit more time. The action was fine
throughout, but the match itself wasn’t spectacular by any means. We had
another noticeable botch on this show at the end of this match, though it wasn’t
as bad as the one we saw in the opener. Goto attempted to hit the Shouten Kai didn’t
turn out well. It sort of looked like an awkward attempt to block the move by
Castle, but in reality, I think Goto didn’t fully realize Castle’s size when he
went to lift him up. His second attempt was more successful, and Goto scored
the victory. The two shook hands after the match.Again, this was perfectly solid.
4.) Alex Shelley vs. Christopher Daniels (with Frankie
Kazarian): **3/4
Brian Kendrick made a random appearance here on commentary. He
has a history with ROH for sure, but to bring him out here unannounced, when he
hadn’t wrestled in ROH for a few years was rather odd. The story behind this
one is that in the Fall of 2015, someone wearing the red mask of the KRD (which
The Addiction & Chris Sabin had used to steal the ROH World Tag Team
Titles) had been costing the heel contingent a number of big matches.
Eventually, Chris Sabin confronted this masked man, and it turned out to be
Alex Shelley. In the ensuing months, when The Addiction went after Shelley,
Sabin would show restraint, and never really attacked his former tag team
partner.
As for the match itself, it was fine, but this felt like a TV
match as opposed to a PPV match. The action was fine, but Kazarian got involved
at a number of points during the match. Towards the end of the match, Kazarian was
able to distract the referee, Todd Sinclair, which allowed Daniels to go for
his “bullet belt” (which is part of his entrance gear). He was going to use it
on Shelley, but Chris Sabin came out and attacked Daniels! This allowed Shelley
to roll up Daniels for the win! A brawl breaks out almost immediately after the
match, and Sabin & Shelley send Daniels & Kazarian packing. The Motor
City Machine Guns are reunited. I guess they felt that having Sabin &
Shelley reunite was a PPV worthy moment, and to an extent, it was, but as I
mentioned earlier, this match felt more like a TV match.
5.) The Briscoes vs. “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin & Hiroshi
Tanahashi: ***1/2
Back in January, Jay Briscoe scored a pinfall victory over
Michael Elgin in a Triple Threat Match that also involved Moose. In response to
this loss, Elgin challenged The Briscoes to a tag team match, and announced
that his partner would be Hiroshi Tanahashi. Of course, Elgin knows Tanahashi
very well, as they teamed together in New Japan’s World Tag Team League at the
end of 2015. As far as this match goes, I thought it was really good. It got a
fair amount of time (lasting around fifteen minutes or so), and it featured
some entertaining action from start to finish. All four guys are awesome, so
there was no way this wouldn’t be good. Honestly, I don’t have much to say
other than that. It was simply a very good tag team match, and one of the
better bouts on the undercard. In the end, and Elgin Bomb followed by a High
Fly Flow would secure the victory for Elgin & Tanahashi.
I think it’s fair to say that this was one of the most
anticipated matches on the entire card, just to see how Moose would do against
Okada. He ended up doing pretty well, as this was a very good match. Of course,
we did get a battle of the dropkicks here, as both guys hit their signature
dropkicks at some point during the match. There was some nice brawling on the
outside and really solid action inside the ring. Moose definitely worked hard
here, while Okada was his usual great self. Ultimately, Okada got the win with
the Rainmaker, but it was still a strong performance from Moose against one of
the best wrestlers in the world.
The two men shook hands after the match.
7.) NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Titles – The Elite (IWGP
Intercontinental Champion Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks) vs. ACH, IWGP Jr.
Heavyweight Tag Team Champion Matt Sydal & KUSHIDA: ****1/2
In a rare sight, a New Japan title is being defended on a ROH
PPV. In this case, the newly created NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Titles
are on the line, as The Elite (who just won the titles a week prior during the Honor Rising events) are defending
against the makeshift trio of ACH, Matt Sydal and KUSHIDA. It’s actually a big
deal that Omega is on this show, as it’s his first appearance in ROH since (I
think) 2010. As far as the match is concerned, it thought it was fantastic!! It
was easily the match of the night by a significant margin. There was insane
action in this one from start to finish. The Elite are so awesome as a trio,
while ACH, Matt Sydal, and KUSHIDA each had their own moments of glory. This
match featured so many crazy moves that it’s impossible to talk about them all.
Eventually, The Elite managed to get the victory after an incredible series of
moves. The Young Bucks hit Sydal with a Meltzer Driver, and then Omega hit his
One Winged Angel. Again, this was simply an awesome match that needs to be
seen, if you haven’t seen it already.
8.) ROH World Tag Team Titles – No DQ Match – War Machine vs.
The All-Night Express: ***
The storyline here is that ANX viewed themselves as the
uncrowned champions, since they only lost the titles when Kenny King jumped to
TNA in the summer of 2012 after the team had just won the titles. Since they
officially became the #1 Contenders at Final
Battle 2015, they’ve slowly done a heel turn, and after an initial title
match ended in a DQ/No Contest, it’s led us to a No DQ Match. This was good,
but at the same time, underwhelming. I think this particular match was a victim
of poor match placement. There’s no way it was going to follow that Six-Man
Tag. That match was so awesome that it burned out the crowd for this match,
which is a real shame, because all four guys busted their asses (figuratively
and probably literally) in this one. There was nothing wrong with the action, but
again, the crowd was tired. All sorts of weapons were used (including Chairs, Tables,
Trash Cans, and a Ladder) and both teams kicked out of the other team’s
finisher, but the crowd was mostly quiet. This match would’ve been better if it
was either the opener or the second match of the PPV. In the end, War Machine
hit Fallout for a second time to score the win, retaining their ROH World Tag
Team Titles in the process. Again, the match was good, but there was no energy
from the crowd.
9.) ROH World Title – Triple Threat Match – Jay Lethal (with
Truth Martini & Taeler Hendrix) vs. Adam Cole vs. Kyle O’Reilly: ***3/4
At the last PPV, Final
Battle 2015, Jay Lethal successfully retained the ROH World Title against
AJ Styles. Meanwhile, Adam Cole got a controversial win over Kyle O’Reilly,
though O’Reilly would get the last laugh. Their paths have now converged, and
we’re now getting a Triple Threat Match in the main event of this PPV. This was
a match that, like so many others on this show, got shortchanged on time (It
started with only twenty minutes or so left on the PPV, and it ended up going
around thirteen minutes). Despite that issue, this was still a really good
match, to the point where I can confidently call it the second best match of
the night. There managed to pack a lot of exciting action (including a number
of entertaining spots) in the time they were given, and they told a nice story
with all three guys involved. There really wasn’t any down time, which I think
helped the match a great deal as well. At the time this match took place, I had
a feeling that there could’ve been a title change here, but in the end, that
didn’t come to pass. Cole & O’Reilly were too obsessed over the each, to
the point where it led to them taking their eyes off the prize at stake, and
that led to Lethal hitting a double Lethal Injection on both guys. He pinned
Cole to retain his title, and celebrated with the rest of The House of Truth as
the show went off the air.
Overall:
8.0/10
This was a very fascinating PPV from ROH. If it weren’t for the
Six-Man Tag for the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Titles, which was one of
the best ROH matches of 2016, this would’ve been only a decent to (maybe) good
PPV. The Elite vs. ACH, Matt Sydal, & KUSHIDA really lifted this show up.
That’s not to say there weren’t really good matches on this PPV, because there
were, but there wasn’t anything great besides that one match. I think the big
problem with this PPV was the fact that nine matches was just too much. If you
took Adam Page vs. BJ Whitmer off the PPV, it would’ve given all of the matches
more room to breathe. Instead, we got shorter matches tightly packed into a
three hour PPV, and while shorter sprints are far from a bad thing, I think it really
hurt this show, because a lot of these matches could’ve been a little bit
better had they gotten a few extra minutes. Still, this match was good enough
that it warrants a slight thumb’s up. ROH could’ve done a better job with the timing
and how they structured the amount of time these matches got, but despite those
issues, it was still a good show.
AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, & Doc Gallows make their final appearances in ROH!
So this was a very interesting weekend for ROH. There were
actually supposed to have an event in Asheville, North Carolina the night
before, but a bad winter storm forced them to cancel the show entirely, leaving
this as the sole ROH show of the weekend.
ROHWinter Warriors Tour
‘16: Duluth
Duluth, Georgia 1/23/16
1.) Dalton Castle vs. Corey Hollis (with Trina Michaels): ***1/4
It’s always a nice treat to see Corey Hollis on a ROH event.
He’s been used sporadically by the company during the SBG era, and always puts
in solid performances. On this night, Trina Michaels accompanied Hollis to
ringside as he took on Dalton Castle. I thought this was a solid opening
contest. The match definitely got off to a slow start, but it definitely picked
up in the second half. They did get a good amount of time, and that certainly
helped. Hollis had a good showing, but in the end, Dalton Castle scored the
victory.
Up next, we had an in-ring promo from Georgia native AJ Styles
promo. He had recently finished up in New Japan (he was kicked out of The
Bullet Club the night after Wrestle
Kingdom X, and Kenny Omega assumed controlled of the group). Styles making
an appearance here was actually quite interesting in hindsight, as he would
make his WWE debut in the Royal Rumble Match the next night in Orlando. He got
showered with streamers as he entered the ring. Styles said that he didn’t need
a written speech to pour his heart out to all of the fans. He said that ROH was
one of the best promotions he’s ever worked for in his entire career. He didn’t
know where he’d be without ROH, as he started with them in 2002, before he
joined TNA. Styles was grateful to ROH for welcoming him back when he left TNA,
and tells the fans to enjoy themselves tonight.
Styles was then interrupted by ROH World Champion Jay Lethal
& Taeler Hendrix. Lethal said that nobody cared what AJ Styles had to say.
Lethal noted that he beat Styles in the main event at Final Battle, and reminds him that ROH belongs to The House of
Truth. He said people care about what he is doing, and brought up his ROH World
Title defense tonight against Matt Jackson of The Young Bucks. Lethal said that
normally, he doesn’t have issues with defending his title, but tonight was an
exception, as he didn’t want to defend his title in a “god-awful” place like
Duluth, adding that it isn’t even part of Atlanta proper. He claimed to be the
greatest champion in the world, which brought out ROH World TV Champion
Roderick Strong. He claimed to be the greatest champion in pro-wrestling, but
he did agree with Lethal about Duluth, saying it sucked. Strong also agreed
with Lethal on not caring about AJ Styles. He doesn’t care what AJ Styles is
doing in the future. The two champions threaten to attack Styles, but this
brought out The Bullet Club of Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, & The Young
Bucks. Anderson said The Bullet Club had arrived, and then Matt Jackson spoke,
mentioning their attack on AJ Styles on Korakuen Hall the night after Wrestle Kingdom X. Matt Jackson said
that tonight, their issues were with Lethal & Strong. He said that, unlike
Lethal & Strong, The Young Bucks are fighting champions, and proclaimed
that they wanted their title shots. Gallows then took the mic and called out
War Machine. He said that since they weren’t out there, he assumes they don’t
want to defend their titles, and calls all the champions in ROH pussies. This
finally brought out War Machine, and they went right after Anderson &
Gallows. A big brawl broke out, and all eight men needed to be separated.
After that long segment, “P-Dog” Mike Posey came out with his
posse. He tried to start a rap concert, but AJ Styles came back out and
destroyed Posey with a Styles Clash.
2.) The All-Night Express vs. Cheeseburger & Moose (with
Stokely Hathaway): ***1/2
Moose wore a Cheeseburger hat during his entrance. Honestly, I
wasn’t expecting much from this one, but it ended up being a surprisingly good
match. There was a lot of fun back & forth action, with some great near
falls in the second half. I know people slowly soured on ANX in the year after
their return, but it’s matches like this that show that are still a very good
tag team that can produce some entertaining matches. On the other side, I
thought Cheeseburger & Moose worked well together as a team. It’s sad that
they never really were a regular duo, as that would’ve been another team to add
to (what was at the time) a stacked tag team division. Ultimately, ANX would
get the win here.
After the match, Moose went for a (reluctant) handshake, but ANX
just blew him off.
3.) Cedric Alexander (with Veda Scott) vs. Mark Briscoe: ***1/2
Ian Riccaboni (who was on commentary for this show) mentioned
very early on in the match that, coming into this show, Mark Briscoe had been
undefeated in singles competition since July of 2015. It sounds like a
fictional statistic, but it’s actually true. That’s a good six-month winning
streak that went totally under the radar. Of course, the fact that he brought
it up here meant that Cedric Alexander was going to end that streak, but that really
didn’t matter, as the match was very good regardless. There was solid action
throughout, and it was an entertaining undercard match to watch. Towards the
end, Mark Briscoe went for the Froggy Bow, but Veda Scott got up on the ring
apron to distract him. This slight delay allowed Alexander to take advantage,
and he would end up getting the win with the Lumbar Check shortly thereafter. I
didn’t mind that interference spot at all. It’s not like Veda Scott got
physically involved in any way. She just distracted Mark Briscoe for a few
seconds, which was enough for Alexander to recover and capitalize.
Before the next match began, Scarlett Bordeaux (who was the ring
announcer on this night) announced that she received a message from Nigel McGuinness
(via text, I guess), and he had ruled that the main event would now be an
eight-man tag team match with all of the titles on the line. Seems like
something WWE or TNA would do, but we’ll see how it turns out later on.
4.) Six-Man Tag – ACH, Alex Shelley, & Matt Sydal vs.
“Unbreakable” Michael Elgin & reDRagon: ****1/4
What’s interesting is that these two sides have teamed together
before. Elgin teamed with reDRagon on a few occasions in 2015 against The
Kingdom, while ACH, Alex Shelley, & Matt Sydal were essentially an
unofficial stable at this time. There wasn’t much of a backstory to this one,
but on paper, it had the potential to be the best match of the night. When the
dust settled, that’s exactly what it ended up being. I thought this was
awesome! This match featured a ton of exciting action from start to finish, and
all six guys had a chance to shine. It really sucks that these ROH live events
(especially in recent years) have almost little to no buzz, because great
matches like this end up getting missed. Alas, as I’ve already mentioned, this
particular contest was pretty great. Eventually, the team of ACH, Alex Shelley,
and Matt Sydal got the win, pinning Michael Elgin after a flurry of high-flying
offense. Elgin being the one to eat the pin was a surprise, but still, this was
fantastic.
5.) “Bullet Babe” Amber Gallows vs. Veda Scott: *
This Women of Honor match was included as a bonus on the DVD,
but in terms of match order, it took place at this point on the show. Taeler
Hendrix made her way out to ringside early on to observe this one. Normally, I
would include the match itself in this post (since ROH posts all of their Women
of Honor matches on YouTube), but I’m not going to in this case. Why? Simply
put, this match was awful. It was incredibly clunky throughout, and both women
were just….bad. I know there was a women’s match in TNA between Rebel &
Shelly Martinez that was universally proclaimed as the worst pro-wrestling
match in 2016, but this wasn’t far behind. Amber Gallows won, but this match was
hot garbage.
6.) Six-Man Mayhem – Jay Briscoe vs. Adam Page vs. Silas Young
vs. Caprice Coleman vs. Will Ferrara vs. Frankie Kazarian: ***3/4
ROH had an amazing Six-Man Mayhem Match as part of their
critically acclaimed Winter Warriors Tour
event in Atlanta in February of 2015, and they went back to the well here with
another really strong Six-Man Mayhem. Now the lineup this time around wasn’t
nearly as star-studded as the year prior, but it was still a very fun match to
watch. It was packed with action right from the start, and we saw a number of
entertaining spot. At one point, there was actually a six person sleeper hold
spot, which was actually pretty cool. Everyone got a chance to shine here as
well, which was good to see.
Towards the end of the match, BJ Whitmer (who was on commentary)
tossed Adam Page into the ring post when he was about to get back in the ring. This
allowed Jay Briscoe to score the victory after hitting Will Ferrara with the Jay
Driller. After the match, Jay Briscoe took the mic, and traded verbal shots
with Kazarian, before turning his attention to Will Ferrara. He told Ferrara that
his time was coming, but the former two-time ROH World Champion was soon
interrupted by BJ Whitmer. He said that while they (as veterans) mentor guys like
Adam Page & Will Ferrara now, they’ll eventually get big egos, and stab them
in the back. Whitmer said that he and Briscoe actually have a lot in common. He
proclaimed that there are a lot of young guys in ROH who don’t know the pecking
order, and they need to be put in their place. Whitmer proposed that The
Briscoes & The Decade (or what was left of The Decade at this point) join
forces, and offers his hand to Jay Briscoe. Instead, Briscoe just flips him
off. Adam Page then attacks Whitmer from behind. He tries to flee, but then Steve
Corino shows up! He throws Whitmer back into the ring, and Adam Page hits him
with his finisher, Right of Passage. Jay Briscoe then shook hands with Page,
which was big, since they had a feud on ROH TV in 2015 that led to a brutal No
DQ Match in San Antonio. They then took a fan sign from the crowd that read
“someone please hit BJ Whitmer with this sign”, and proceede to hit Whitmer
with it, in a funny moment.
7.) Adam Cole vs. Stevie Richards: ***
Stevie Richards (of ECW, WWE, and TNA fame) started to get some
sporadic bookings with ROH towards the end of 2015, and that led to him getting
some more bookings in 2016. Here, he took on Adam Cole. This was by no means
spectacular, but for what it was, I thought it was good. I’m sure some would
complain about ROH using a guy like Steve Richards, but it’s been clear right
from the beginning that his role was to put over younger talents. Plus it’s not
like he became a regular. I’m not thrilled to see him in ROH, but I don’t think
him making a few appearances is a major issue. Regardless, Richards put in a
solid effort against Cole. There was solid action in this one, but it was
easily overshadowed by a lot of other things on this card. Cole would
eventually get the win in this one.
After the match, Stevie Richards went for the Code of Honor, but
Cole fakes him out, and leaves him hanging.
8.) ROH World Title/ROH World TV Title/ROH World Tag Team Titles
– Jay Lethal (with Taeler Hendrix), Roderick Strong, & War Machine vs. The
Bullet Club (Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, & IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team
Champions The Young Bucks with “Bullet Babe” Amber Gallows): ****
Even though The Bullet Club had no chance of winning here (since
Anderson & Gallows were also going to WWE in a few months), it wasn’t made
very clear what would happen with the titles if The Bullet Club won. I would
assume that the person who would get the win would get the title from the guy
they pinned, but what about the other titles? It’s a very convoluted stipulation,
but I think the reason for the change was that The Young Bucks really wanted to
do this Eight-Man Tag, which was originally scheduled to take place in
Asheville before that show got cancelled.
Amber Gallows and Taeler Hendrix both came out to the ring with
their respective sides initially, but they were both taken out fairly quickly.
First, Matt Jackson superkicked Hendrix, and Lethal responded by hitting Amber
Gallows with a superkick of his own. From there, the match devolved into a
giant brawl, but once things got back in this ring, this really ended up being
a great main event. Yes, the outcome was blatantly obvious, and that did hurt
the match a little bit, but the action in this one, especially in the second
half, more than made up for it. The final few minutes of this one were
fantastic, as bodies were flying all over the place. It wasn’t quite as good as
the Six-Man Tag from earlier on, but with that closing stretch, it came pretty
close. Ultimately, War Machine pinned Karl Anderson after hitting Fallout to
score the victory for their team.
The DVD/VOD ended there, but that wasn’t the end of the show. After
the main event finished, AJ Styles came back out, and did a final “curtain call”
with The Bullet Club as he, Anderson, & Gallows celebrated with The Young
Bucks for the last time in a ROH ring.
Overall:
8.25/10
This wasn’t quite as amazing as that crucially acclaimed February
2015 live event from Atlanta the year prior, but it was still a pretty strong
showing from ROH. Aside from the Women of Honor match, there really wasn’t anything
bad to speak of on this card. The multi-man matches were easily the highlights
of this show, with the Six-Man Tag, the Six-Man Mayhem Match, and the Eight-Man
Tag being the highlights of the night. There were also some really entertaining
matches on the rest of the undercard, and as a whole, this event was truly a
joy to watch.
