ROH TV IS BACK BABY!!! I had to go back almost two months to find the format from the last regular TV recap I did. In the meantime, I did provide some lighter write-ups on the Honor Rising shows as well as the Lethal and Bullet Club offerings from the last two weeks. You can find all of them, as well as a Global Wars review from Dave Musgrave and my Hot Takes on Global Wars here.
ROH TV #245 – original air date 5/28/16. From Toronto, Ontario
Lio Rush vs. ACH
Pre-match clip from Dearborn show with ACH talking to former partner Matt Sydal about going out on his own and becoming “me”. Is this the start of an ACH push? Silas Young is out on commentary, channeling Jim Cornette and going on about how ACH is only thinking of his next high spot and how neither of these combatants are real men. This over-talking on commentary takes away from the crisp little match going on in the ring. Nice somersault to the outside by Rush. ACH reverses the Spanish Fly out of the corner into a big super kick, hits his suplex and connects with the 450 for a nice win. Post match Silas is in on both guys, but the focus here is on ACH so there’s your next midcard feud. Both ACH and Silas are seemingly immune to being hurt by losses (ACH – as it’s been noted elsewhere, loses on almost all of the matches of his new DVD, yet is incredibly over), but this is a nice opp for ACH to potentially win a feud.
We get clips from Dearborn and the incredibly surprising tag team title switch. After all that build, the next night the straps change hands. Is this due to the lack of crowd response to War Machine? Perhap the decision was made to move quickly on from them once the Briscoes passing of the torch thing was over. Daniels claims here that the Addiction have never been pinned in a ROH ring, which KK scoffs at. MCMG out now, throwing some shade on the balding Addiction members. Roppangi Vice out now also as we’re setting up a big number 1 contender’s match RIGHT NOW actually, where if either team pins the Addiction they’ll get a title match at Best in the World.
Tag Team Triple Threat Match: MCMG vs. RPG Vice vs. The Addiction
Kevin and Nigel spend the early portion explaining the War Machine change a bit more. They did emphasize they had already wrestled Okada and Gedo (with Rowe taking the Rainmaker, and eventually taking the fall to The Addiction), but that they’re fighting champs so they took the match with the Addiction. I get that to an extent, and while it looks good on paper, I still think that’s a critical hit to a team like War Machine, who already were getting middling responses.
On the champ side, now we have cowardly heels with the titles, and a new chase quest is born. Daniels and Kaz are good enough on the mic to not really need the belts to carry feuds but here we are. The question will be, can they find a team that the crowd is invested enough to really want to see them topple the Addiction? The MCMG win here, but we already saw them beat the Addiction on the Vegas tapings. I think the MCMG have been terrific in 2016 and the match should be fine, I’m just not sure if we’ll see a run from them or not.
Bullet Club promo with Cole and the Bucks. Now KK has already announced the Briscoe/Lethal match (more on this later) and I’ll reiterate – given Global Wars, why is this not Cole now? Briscoe/Lethal I was great, but this feels really shoehorned with NO momentum.
Matt Taven is out on commentary, and its great they’re keeping him on TV as he recovers. Nigel announces the Fight Without Honor between Steven Corino and BJ Whitmer for Best in the World. Literally years in the making and with Steve healthy enough to go, finally the blowoff.
Next, more Dearborn – the Adam Page turn where he revese piledrives Briscoe through a table that doesn’t break. Ouch. He’s in the Bullet Club now to shore up the US ranks.
The Bullet Club (Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks – “The Elite”) vs. Tanahashi, Elgin and Yoshi Tatsu
Taven buries the “Elite” group of BC and then Adam Cole with “nice of Kenny to send him some extra shirts so he (Kenny) doesn’t have to show up in the States”. Tatsu’s ROH debut here and he is pretty much invisible until it’s time to take the fall at the end.
Without coming across diminishing the match, this was perfectly what you’d expect from the parties involved, and I enjoy Omega so it’s cool to have him on TV again. Both Bucks end up sustaining injuries here unfortunately. It’s really quite a dynamic: The Bullet Club are heels in ROH, yet cheered. Taven heels HARD on the BC (as if they’re faces), tying in the crowd cheering for them as dorks, just like the guys in the group. So he comes off as the bigger heel and promises that his group will rival the BC. Plus Adam Cole doesn’t come out at the end, presumably because of Taven, which makes Taven a pretty big babyface, which is not really what he is. THIS IS A CONUNDRUM.
Final thoughts: lots of warranted recaps and announcements to get us from Global Wars, plus the eventful Dearborn show to current day TV. The action was great too – a strong return.
