10 Thoughts on ROH on HDNet 10.25.2010 feat. Kings of Wrestling vs.Briscoe Brothers, House of Truth, and Necro Butcher

Reviews, Shows, TV Shows

First off, my apologies to my dozens (AND DOZENS!) of readers for my tardiness, which seems to be happening quite a bit these days. Those of you that have planned a wedding know that it can be a lot of work. Those of you that have bought a house know that it can be a lot of work. Well, those of you that have bought a house AND planned a wedding at the same time know that it’s not something that should be attempted.

Fortunately, Kyle Sparks took care of everyone that came to Pulse Wrestling for their ROH fix with yet another excellent recap of this week’s show.

Anyway, you didn’t come here for jibba jabba. You came here for 10 Thoughts! So, without further ado . . .

1. Not a particularly enjoyable opener tonight. It seemed to be intended as a squash match, only it didn’t “showcase” the winning team like squash matches tend to do. I only noticed it was a squash when I realized that Grizzly Redwood and “Right Leg” Ridge only got but a couple of offensive moves in. Also, too many blown moves by anyone not named Erick Stevens.

2. I wonder if the opener wasn’t just a way to blow off the Embassy’s current feud. With Necro Butcher having joined the group and Rasche Brown left the company, the only person on the other side of the feud was Grizzly Redwood, and that’s just not enough to carry the feud. Having also heard that some of the Embassy members are being pulled off shows for a while, I wonder if the group as a whole hasn’t run its course. I hope not, since I’d miss Nana, but what else is there for them to do?

3. Claudio Castagnoli definitely brought the goods in the Kings of Wrestling’s backstage interview. From his ever-present Starbucks cup, to his telling Kyle Durden not to look at him, to capping off the interview by channeling Ivan Drago (“we will break you”) Claudio was subtle, yet entertaining.

4. I like the idea behind having two “up-and-coming” tag teams like the House of Truth and the Super Smash Brothers face each other. Eventually, ROH may want to elevate one of these teams up the tag team scene, and having that team be able to claim victory (or victories) over other similarly situated teams will justify that team’s rise.

5. However, it’ll help both teams if the match is good, which I didn’t think this was. There was nothing wrong with it per se, but it was too short to mean anything and the finish just came out of nowhere. I’ve seen the Super Smash Brothers have a great match with the American Wolves, so I know they’re capable of more, but the House of Truth continues to not do anything for me. Not a good sign, since they appear to be the ones ROH wants to elevate.

6. Homicide didn’t say anything of note in his interview, though I did find it interesting that he singled out three guys no longer with the company (Joe, Punk, and Danielson). At the very least, it certainly doesn’t hurt to take some TV time to remind everyone whose primary vehicle to ROH is HDNet that Homicide is, indeed, back.

7. I’m already eagerly anticipating next week’s cage match between Cabana & Generico vs. Corino & Steen. These four have combined for some awesome, violent brawls in 2010, and while I don’t know how they can top what they’ve already done, I expect this to be really good.

8. The Kings and the Briscoe Brothers did a great job of building up to the hot tag to Jay. Some may claim that the heat segment on Mark was too long, but I say those people are fools! The Kings’ tandem offense is always fun to watch, and Mark did a great job of taking the beatdown while mixing in some nice hope spots before getting cut off again and again.

9. Terrible ending to an otherwise great main event, but I suppose the cop-out finish was justified. The Kings have beaten the Briscoes enough times that a clean victory would probably have been a little too much. This helped the Briscoes keep some heat while putting an end to their title shots, makes the Kings look like the dastardly heels that they are, and sets up the six-man involving Papa Briscoe and Hagadown, all the while preventing the title switch we knew wasn’t going to happen.

10. Not ROH’s best effort, but it certainly wasn’t bad. The first two matches were nothing to write home about, but the main event was good and, as always, the show progressed logically and was free of worthless fluff. It’s a nice, sufficiently entertaining hour of pro wrestling, and sometimes you can’t ask for more than that.