Reaction of Honor 2.9.2013 (MsChif, Top Prospects)

Reviews, Shows, TV Shows

The Glimpse:

MsChif in action for the Women of Honor, the Top Prospects tournament continues and a huge eight man tag!

Also a slightly trimmed format for you all – No more “rant” section as writing a rant after writing a reaction was jarring and segmented, so I can only imagine how it was to read.  Not to mention that in the past couple of months, there’s less and less to “rant” about.  I’ve been genuinely positive on the shows, so to shoehorn in a complaints section just got tiresome.  Welcome to the Reaction of Honor.

The Action:

Match 1: Matt Taven vs ACH, Top Prospect Tournament First Round

Winner:  Matt Taven via pinfall

Quick open from both men with rapid counters, leaving them on an even playing field.  ACH with a clothesline through the ropes, but Taven answers with a rebounding kick and a dive.  Taven heads to the top but whiffs a cross body, then takes a kick to the back of the head.  ACH with a quick transition but takes a moonsault for a two count.  ACH lands an axe kick on the apron, a baseball slide and a flip dive.  Taven kicks out at two and the crowd is strongly behind the new comer who lands a series of kicks and a low reverse STO for two.  ACH sheds his elbow pads for a series of strikes with the exposed points.  Taven answers with a discus boot and heads to the top to follow up.  ACH cuts him off and hits the Flash Kick for another near fall.  Taven once again comes back with a spinning neck breaker off the top rope and a frog splash, winning.

Adam Cole in Ring:

Nigel McGuinness calls the ROH TV champion to the ring for a chat.  He also invites down Matt Hardy, and his entrance just feels empty without a “whooooaaaa yeahhhhh” to kick it off, but that’s just my opinion.  Both men have requested a rematch of their Final Battle 2012 match and Nigel will deliver his decision now.  Matt does not get a title match because he had to kick Adam Cole in the palm tree and coconuts to beat him.  McGuinness will grant a match for Cole to get some retribution, but it will not be for the title.  Hardy wishes to decline if he’s not getting a shot at the ROH Television belt.  Hardy is in denial of any wrong doing at FB2012 and says he’s done.  Cole insists that the match be for the title and Nigel tells him to hush.  Matt runs down his title accolades then tells Nigel that he must be jealous.  Matt runs down Nigel now and Cole interrupts and tells Hardy not to dare disrespect him.  Cole tells Hardy that if he needs a reason to fight a non-title bout, he’ll give him one then proceeds to punch him in the face.  Quick pull apart fight and this story will go on.

Inside ROH:

Top Prospects tournament results review.  Truth Martini interjects himself and gives his thoughts on the entrants.  He then takes off his pants.  No seriously, that’s the joke.  He says it’s time to take your pants off.

In Cincinnati, a six man tag will occur:  SCUM vs Richards, Cole and Elgin.

At the 11th Anniversary, March 2nd, The Briscoes defend the ROH Tag Team Championship against Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish.  The challengers appear to trash talk the Briscoes in a scarf and sweater for some ungodly reason.  Steen will defend against Lethal.  Elgin will take on Roddy in a two-out-of-three falls match.  The winner of the Top Prospects tournament gets a TV title shot.  Sounds like a fun show, actually.  Too bad it’s not at Hammerstein in NY like the 10th Anniversary show was.

Match 2: Athena vs MsChif, Women of Honor

Winner:  MsChif via pinfall

Veda Scott is on commentary because…well…I dunno.  Women.  Not a bad idea to actually have a woman’s perspective who’s been in the ring.  Tale of the tape actually gives the womens’ weights.  Nice touch.

Athena starts with a keylock and a floatover, then a springboard cross body for an early nearfall.  MsChif folds Athena up and hits a gutbuster.  MsChif now with a drop toe hold and a bridging pinfall attempt.  Athena with a pair of kicks and whiffing the third.  MsChif sweeps the leg and tries a standing moonsault for two.  Repeated odd cuts to the commentary booth as Athena tries a handspring back kick in the corner, which she doesn’t quite judge right.  MsChif answers with double stomps to the back with Athena’s face on the bottom turnbuckle which actually looks brutal.  More sloppy strikes from Athena and a diving twisting Stunner from the top rope.  Chif gets her foot on the bottom rope to save herself.  Out on the apron they exchange strikes before MsChif gets kicked back into the ring.  Athena wants another of the top rope move called the O-Face but Chif cuts her off and hits Obliteration out of the corner for the win.

Match 3:  SCUM (Rhino/Steen/Corino/Jacobs) vs Coleman/Alexander and The Briscoes

Winners:  SCUM via pinfall

Lethal is on commentary, as the booth seems to need a guest at all times this week.  As expected, the match opens up with a bedlam.

It takes a couple of minutes to actually get the match starter properly, which begs the question of why the officials don’t just throw the bout out, but that would make for crummy television.  Corino and Jay Briscoe end up facing off in the ring with Corino asking for a handshake.  He tries a cheap kick to Jay who throws him out of the ring so we’re back to chaos.  Corino and Jay back into the ring and Jay unloads with jabs and a boot.  Corino kicks Jay out of the corner, who walks into Rhino and a TKO.  Corino tags Jacobs in and Steen with a cheap shot into a commercial.  Back to action, Jay is fighting off Rhino and Corino tags back in and delivers a cheap shot to Mark, drawing that side into the ring for a distraction.  Kevin Steen tags in for a quick shot then tags back out to Corino, continuing the pressure on Jay Briscoe.  More cheap shots from the SCUM corner as Briscoe’s team is chomping at the bit to get in.  Steen back in and walks into the second turnbuckle reverse STO.  Mark Briscoe gets the tag!

Redneck KungFu for Corino and Jacobs but Rhino takes exception.  Coleman gets a turn and dropkicks both Corino and Rhino.  Steen stops Coleman then eats a Sambo suplex from Mark Briscoe.  Alexander’s turn now and he and Coleman hit Total Elimination.  We’re back to chaos on the floor and Steen is left alone in the ring.  He heads to the top rope and lays out all seven men with a somersault senton.  Steen and Alexander back in the ring and Steen takes a springboard tornado DDT, but the pin is broken by Jacobs.  The Briscoes end up with Jacobs set up for the Doomsday Device but Corino makes the save, allowing Jacobs to hit the Contra Code.  Corino follows with the Eternal Dream (which Seltzer calls the Ugly Stick – not doubting him, but that would be a new name to me).  In any case, it’s a low lariat.  Coleman takes a Gore and Alexander gets a Package Piledriver for the loss.  Steen immediately grabs his title and leaves.

The Reaction:

ACH has indeed been signed to a contract at ROH, which is great for both himself and the organization.  This match took place prior to that signing, hence the loss here.  One would expect ACH to pick up the win as he’s a pretty popular guy among indie fans, where as Matt Taven has been ROH’s jobber of choice for months now.  The action was excellent and the Flash Kick actually had me thinking Taven was done, and there’s no better moment in wrestling than truly thinking a match is over and someone kicking out.  I see good things for ACH in the near future if this kind of action continues.  This leaves QT Marshall, Tadarius Thomas, Silas Young and Matt Taven for the semifinals.

Words words words words words words words good lord WORDS.  Matt’s a jerk, Adam’s the fiery, fighting baby face champion.  About as cookie cutter as it gets and way longer than it needed to be, but the point at least got across.  This rivalry will continue, possibly ending up including BJ Whitmer who has the next TV Title shot against Cole.  After their Final Battle 2012 match, it might not be a bad idea to interject something else in here as the rivalry itself isn’t especially interesting.

Athena’s strikes are all over the place and nobody should ever do those corner handspring moves because they always judge them wrong but the Psycho Crusher Stunner from the top rope made me pop.  Her athleticism is right on point, now to just refine.  MsChif as always is a solid talent.  I was personally hoping for the Desecrator DDT because I love seeing it, but a second rope piledriver like Obliteration is just dandy.  We really need more of the WoH matches, as they’re once every month or two at best.

Big messy mess of a mess.  Fun action and a high energy finish.  Finishers for everyone from the boys of SCUM.  It’s always interesting when the bad guys pick up what’s essentially a clean win.  It’s so rarely seen in the big leagues of WWE and TNA – The bad man always needs to concoct a plan to win, instead of just being a fighter.  Kudos for it happening here in ROH.  Safe to assume Steen’s quick exit is due to the presence of Lethal in the arena, as when Steen excepted his challenge he also left quite quickly.  The Briscoes are a good pair to have trumpeting for ROH, but there needs to be more of a presence from the locker room to tell SCUM to piss off – ROH belongs to that whole locker room, not just the Briscoes.  Rhett Titus, Eddie Edwards, Roderick Strong should all be begging for a chance to fight SCUM off and save their home and their livelihood.  Guys like ACH who are newly signed should be coming in asking “Why are they allowed to run roughshod over us all!?”.  See?  The rants are still there.

The Preview:

The Top Prospects tournament continues, heading into the semifinals.

The Shill:

As always, if you like what you read here, let me know in the comments or on twitter @sbfantom.  I sincerely would like to hear what people think and strike up some conversation!

Come on over to The Geek Asylum – we’re currently on hiatus, but we’ll soon be back for extended Raw and Smackdown reactions.

Here to bring you Roundtable contributions for Raw, NXT and Ring of Honor where appropriate. Covering ROH and NJPW major events, be they live or PPV. Avid Smash Bros fan and player. Come find me @sbfantom on Twitter and join in on the fun.