ROH Discussion Thread

ROH 5/11/23

I liked Briscoe/Shane Taylor much more than I thought I would and Shane hit some great punches here. Mark then said he was coming for Joe again after.

Claudio and Yuta vs Rhett and Tracy Williams was fine.

Samoa Joe vs Blake Christian was shorter than it should have been but it was good. Blake was the underdog here before his eventual downfall.

The Infantry vs The Righteous - The crowd was not into this at all and the finishing stretch was messy. This was just not what they needed for their first new ROH match. They had Stu Grayson come down during this and Dutch said he was "one of us" after. I am curious to see if they go through with this or not as the Dark Order will be down to only three guys if Stu joins with them. This will be a problem because if Stu goes with The Righteous here, he's going to have to do it on AEW TV too. I just think it's going to be messy one way or the other and eventually cause a problem.

Vertvixen vs Robyn Renegade - Robyn got the upset win here. They messed up the finish as Robyn tapped her and released the hold before the ref called it. Vert lost on her ROH debut here, in typical AEW fashion. It feels like Vert updated her look some as she looked like a star.

We get a segment with Dalton Castle and The Embassy. We are told Nana's crew attacked Brent but we didn't get to see it. Nana then had his mask and taunted Dalton with it.

Ninja Mack vs Willie Mack - The Mack Brothers are in action here. It was short but they matched up well. I would have liked it to go longer as Ninja didn't get to show off a lot of his best stuff. Ninja loses in his ROH/AEW debut. There was no intro or explanation for who Ninja was, which is a shame because there's so much fun stuff you can do with the Ninja gimmick and he obviously has tons of highlights to show.

The Embassy did a quick squash where Cage hit a great release german.

Kyle Fletcher vs Tony Deppen - This had another botched finish where there was a three count but everyone thought it was a 2.

Anthony Henry vs AR Fox - Just bad indy garbage. Henry and JD attack AR after. Shane Taylor comes out to help JD and Henry for some reason. FTR then come out to help AR, instead of his usual partners of Metallik and Blake Christian. This was really weird considering that Blake had a match on the show and was there. Eddie Kingston also returned to help out AR. He grabbed the mic and they cut away before he could say anything.

Athena vs Skye Blue - This was bad. Skye's offense was horrible here and she nearly landed on her head when she was thrown out. They had a powerbomb off the apron onto the side of the steps spot but you could hear them counting together and the powerbomb was very weak. Athena beats her up after.

I think all we really know for next week is:
Fight Without Honor - The Kingdom vs Action Andretti and Darius Martin

Overall thoughts: They had a bad night with multiple botched finishes. The matches I liked were on the shorter side and the main and semi main did not deliver. It was the usual weird show with people not being on it or mentioned for no real reason, people debuting without any hype or explanation and people losing on their debuts.

I think that if you trimmed some of the fat from this week's 2 hour ROH down to 1h30, it would've been a perfect episode.

Ideally, this show would be on a streaming service with other AEW content and then they wouldn't feel bad about making it a 1H show

• NJPW World TV Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. AR Fox
• Fight Without Honor: The Kingdom (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) vs. Darius Martin & Action Andretti
• Shane Taylor & The Workhorsemen (JD Drake & Anthony Henry) vs. Ricky Gibson, Eddie Pearl & Schaff (just a squash match and you know this team of Shane Taylor and The Workhorsemen is never going to beat anyone who is signed LOL)
• Rey Fenix vs. ****** Loco
• Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels vs. Zack Clayton & Cole Karter
• Mercedes Martinez vs. Ashley D’Amboise
• Gates of Agony (Kaun & Toa Liona) (w/ Prince Nana) vs. Dalton Castle & The Boy
• Angelico & Serpentico vs. Eli Isom & Cheeseburger (I was excited to see Serp win a match but this is "AEW DARK" content)
• Iron Savages (Boulder & Bronson) vs. Ryan Nemeth & Peter Avalon
• Willow Nightingale vs. Madi Wrenkowski (I love Madi and Willow, but this was just a pointless squash match)

Like if you do something like this^ that's a clean wrestling show full of good content and not much filler. The stuff I didn't strike out, I really enjoyed. In particular, I'd say that Cole Karter and Ashley D'Amboise had their best ever outings, which is exactly what you'd like to see from a show like this.

ROH 5/18/23

Ninja Mack and Willie Mack formed a team to start the show. Neither were any good on the mic here.

Grin. Loco vs Rey Fenix - They did way too much here and it was as indy as it gets.

Madi Wrenkowski vs Willow Nightingale - It was short and mostly a squash, but it was okay.

The Wingmen (Ryan Nemeth and Peter Avalon) vs The Iron Savages - It was short and fine. The Savages looked good as usual. I just don't get why they AEW won't put them on TV. It's been like 2-3 years.

Cole Karter and Zack Clayton vs Christopher Daniels and Matt Sydal - The heels were heels and the faces eventually made their comeback and won it. Clayton hit a nice lariat and it sounds like we are going to be seeing more of that pairing.

Lady Frost vs Miranda Alize - Frost is probably one of the best women AEW has. I have no clue why they are sticking her down in ROH. She's so far above that. This was another short one.

Spanish Announce Project (Angelico and Serpentico) vs Eli Isom and Cheeseburger - Another shorter one here. Eli looked okay but there wasn't much to this.

NJPW World Television Title - Zack Sabre Jr. vs AR Fox - I didn't like this one at all. Zack worked the arm and AR sold it big early then it was forgotten about. Zack then moved over to working the leg instead and won with a split legged submission.

They had a weird angle where Samoa Joe challenged Zack to a match between the two TV champs. Then Sydal and Daniels came down and they made a tag match where if Sydal or Daniels get the pinfall, they get a shot at either Joe's or Zack's title. It just felt random.

The Gates of Agony vs Dalton Castle and The Boy - The Embassy took out Brent, so we just had Brandon here. I feel like we've seen this pairing too many times now. It went longer than it needed to as it should have been a squash. Toa got a funny "wash your feet" chant when he stood on Brandon's face.

The Workhorsemen and Shane Taylor vs Schaff, Midnight Heat (Ricky Gibson and Eddie Pearl) - This was just a squash but Schaff's a big scary looking dude and Heat have 80's babyface tag team vibes. These guys need to come back so we can see more of them.

Stu Grayson said he was going to give The Righteous one chance, while Uno and the Dark Order tried to talk him out of it.

Ashley D'Amboise vs Mercedes Martinez- Not good at all. I've never liked Martinez and Ashley threw horrible strikes here.

Fight Without Honor - The Kingdom vs Darius Martin and Action Andretti - It was a good match, but they were just unlucky here. They messed up a spike piledriver on chairs spot and a table didn't break when it was supposed to. I would have had The Kingdom win here especially since we know Andretti and Darius are only a temporary pairing.

It was a good show overall with some decent matches and a good main. It still had the usual issues though with people missing and things not being followed up on. FTR and Eddie came out last week, and nothing followed up that here. Robyn Renegade got an upset win last week and was MIA here. We still haven't seen much of the Lucha Bros even though they are the tag champs and Shibata won the Pure title and has been gone mostly since then.

Five women's matches on this week's show.

Will Ninja and Willie be called Returns of the Macks?

Who the fuck has time to watch tese many meaningless matches?