The Glimpse:
Tonight, we take a quick look at the April 13th show, in the interest of keeping up. Bobby Fish takes on Eddie Edwards and the number one contender to the ROH TV Title will be determined in a five man scramble.
The Action:
Nigel McGuinness and the Ring of Honor roster are front and center – It is a new dawn in ROH thanks to Jay Briscoe’s victory at Supercard of Honor VII. Jay begins to discuss candidates for ROH Title shots. Adam Cole steps in and says ROH is about the future, so he’s the man to step up. After the declaration, Cole storms to the back.
Match 1: Eddie Edwards vs Bobby Fish
Winner: Bobby Fish via pinfall
Interesting dynamic, as Edwards and Fish will tag in Japan after this match. A lot of back and forth grappling and incredibly stiff strikes as one can only expect from these two.
Edwards hits a moonsault to the floor toward the end of the match and absolutely slams his shin into the top of the barrier. Having been there, let me just say that I heard the impact of the bone on the metal and it had to hurt like hell. Despite this, Edwards is still able to hit a missile dropkick and keep the solid strikes going. Corner enziguiri and the Chinchecker lead Edwards into the Achilles Lock, but Fish kicks out of it. Fish catches a kick and lands two leg kicks and a dragon screw to take advantage of Edwards’ earlier miscalculation. Edwards answers with the Boston Knee Party from the second rope, followed by Fish countering movement into a falcon arrow and a huge belly to back suplex for two. Fish heads to the top rope and mocks the Wolves’ howl, but misses a double stomp. Edwards flips out of a German suplex attempt and ignores a boot in his face, delivering a huge lariat. Edwards continues with a tiger suplex for a very near two. Edwards’ turn to head to the top but Fish cuts him off for a superplex attempt which Edwards headbutts his was out of. Edwards shows Fish how the Wolves do a double stomp but when he tries to pick up Fish to finish him off, the Tag Team Champion snags him for a jackknife pin to eek out the pinfall.
Match 2: Alabama Attitude vs QT Marshall and R.D. Evans
Winners: QT Marshall and R.D. Evans via pinfall
Evans runs his mouth in the best way and says that he’s the ideal partner for Marshall.
Both members of Alabama Attitude are basically Evan Bourne. They fly about the ring and Marshall tosses them all over, with Evans picking away when he tags himself in.
Evans ends up on the top rope with the smaller of the two opponents and headbutts him, wanting a superplex. He’s countered and takes a sunset flip powerbomb, followed by a guillotine leg drop. Marshall breaks it up and throws the bigger one, then deadlifts the smaller one up for God’s Gift. Evans cradles the little fella and gets the pinfall then celebrates like he won the world title.
Match 3: Mike Mondo vs Cedric Alexander vs Caprice Coleman vs Mark Briscoe vs BJ Whitmer, Winner get an ROH TV Title shot
Winner: Jay Briscoe via pinfall
Roderick Strong comes out and protests not being in the match. Roddy says he’s done everything he’s been asked and feels slighted not having a chance. Strong tells Mondo that he’s got fire but he doesn’t belong. Since Mondo has a Napoleon complex he immediately tackles and fights Strong. It’s broken up during a commercial to get some entrances done.
This is a five man equivalent of a Four Corner Survival match, just with a fifth man and lucha rules – You touch the floor, you’ve tagged out. The first fall gets a TV Title shot. Tons of fast action, definitely designed to make everyone look good. Matches like this just have spots that you have to turn off your brain for. Men continually dive out of the ring into a dogpile, which actively removes them from gaining a pinfall – But the dives look cool so we all let it go in the interest of having a good time. And a good time is had by all watching this action. If you’re the type that reads these results and doesn’t watch the action, knock it off. ROH has the shows online for free every Thursday and you should be watching.
Alexander would deliver a superplex to Mondo and Briscoe would land Froggy-Bow on Alexander as he lay on the mat, then get the pin. Now to be honest, neither Alexander or Mondo rolled out of the ring. Ideally Mondo would have rolled out to properly make Mark legal, but again – We let these things go in the interest of having ourselves an entertaining time and nobody is the worse for wear due to it.
The Reaction:
Fish and Edwards have a respectable PPV-level match. Now I’ll never complain about a great match on TV, but when this is the expected action it causes one of two things: Either people expect significantly more at PPVs or people don’t bother buying PPVs because they already see matches of that quality. Neither of these is an ideal situation. It feels odd to criticize guys for having good matches, and that’s not exactly what I mean to do here, but it would behoove Ring of Honor as a whole to stop having high class matches on the TV show to make them seem far more special on internet Pay Per View. Yeah, that’s the angle – Criticizing the company, not the guys. That said, freakin’ awesome match and it would be silly to expect any less from Bobby Fish and Eddie Edwards.
Interesting action – Wouldn’t mind seeing Alabama Attitude back for future tag matches with other “real” teams to see what they can really do. Evans played a heel version of his Archibald Peck character in this one, and that was great. The CHIKARA faithful gave him a handful of “Archie” chants which he smartly ignored. On a small opponent, God’s Gift looks great. God’s Gift to wrestling, however still looks like a mediocre wrestler who either has no shine or hasn’t been given the chance to do so. I for one still couldn’t give less of a crap about him. More of R.D. Evans in the future would be just dandy, though.
Fun pile of action in this one. It was half set up and grappling and half high spots – Very ROH.
The Preview:
Like I said, this is a bit more truncated than normal – House hunting will do that to you.
No preview given for the next episode.
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! And don’t forget to check out my new weekly coverage of WWE’s developmental group, NXT on the Yellow Ropes Report.
