10 Thoughts on … Ring of Honor October 22, 2016 (Colt Cabana, Dalton Castle, Kyle O’Reilly, Tetsuya Naito),

10 Thoughts, Columns, Reviews, Top Story

Thought Zero – Here we are again with Ring of Honor wrestling. Let’s not waste any time and get right to it!

1) First match features The Tempura Boyz versus Colt Cabana and Dalton Castle. I have never seen the Tempura Boyz, so I am curious as to how good these New Japan Young Lions are. But their name is awful. Right up there with Curry Man, actually. Why do food names get over in wrestling? For example – Cheeseburger.

2) Some quick double team work by Yohei and Sho as they get the advantage over Colt Cabana. That momentum is slow downed by some Castle and Cabana goofy humor. I don’t know why those kind of shenanigans don’t bother me as much when Castle does them, but with Cabana it is just annoying to me. Castle and Cabana win the match after Castle hits a Bangarang on Yohei.

3) Overall, the match was too short to really do too much. It didn’t showcase the Tempura Boyz enough and it wasn’t long enough to really establish Cabana and Castle as a legitimate team (aside from a few comedy spots). Personally, I think I would have rather seen Sho and Yohei go up against Castle’s Boys. I think that could have been a more interesting matchup.

4) Back from break and apparently there were words had between Castle and Cabana and the Briscoe Bothers. Jay and Mark are then interviewed by Kevin Kelly and they tell the world they will become nine time tag team champions at Final Battle, regardless of if the Young Bucks or Castle and Cabana are champions going in. So apparently Castle and Cabana have a tag title match coming up at some point against the Young Bucks. Not exactly sure why, but that would explain the heavy promotion of them on commentary. It also looks like the end of the singles pushes for Jay and Mark, at least temporarily.

5) Next match is Jonathan Gresham versus Kyle O’Reilly. Speaking of O’Reilly, apparently he gets a shot at the ROH World Championship match at Final Battle. They are setting up at least half the Final Battle card pretty well in advance.

6) I’m still not a big fan of Gresham, but he is decent in the ring. They start off slow, trading arm wringers and mat reversals before they both rumble out of the ring. Back in, O’Reilly starts in with the kicks, but Gresham attacks the injured shoulder to gain an advantage. I still don’t think it will end well for Gresham. And sure enough, back from break O’Reilly is in control, leading to a heel hook submission. Gresham continues to get some hope spots and some pure wrestling pinfall attempts. O’Reilly wins with a brainbuster in a sequence I really liked. At first, Gresham was blocking the brainbuster attempt. Realizing Gresham wasn’t worn down enough, O’Reilly switched to a pretty vicious looking front face lock which sapped the strength from Gresham. He then transitioned back to the brainbuster for the pin. I like the logic of that. It works so well in a wrestling environment. More people should try it.

7) Post=match, Hangman Page (you did it. You win, ROH. I will call him Hangman Page from now on instead of Adam Page. We were going a little overboard with the number of Adams and Jays in the company.) comes out and attacks O’Reilly, beating on him until Bobby Fish hits the ring to make the save. I am noticing that a lot – Fish waiting until after the beatdown to come out and make the save. There’s probably nothing to it, but it could set up a big breakup angle down the line for reDRagon.

8) Oh, hey, now here is Adam Cole. The Bullet Club Adams use a chait and pummel Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly. NO ONE from the locker room come to help. I guess reDRagon is not that popular with the boys in the back. After about 700 rings of the bell, a ton of security charge out to separate everyone, even though Page and Cole’s attack is over.Not very effective security, I must say.

9) We get another video package regarding BJ Whitmer and Punishment Damien Martinez. That is followed by Will Ferrara and Cheeseburger challenging Martinez, Whitmer, and Sullivan. Yeah, this won’t end well. Kevin Sullivan and Steve Corino start with the Muzaar Mukhan weirdness again. They completely ignore the match while doing so. Cheeseburger and Ferrara get some offense on Whitmer but then Martinez destroys them both for the win. Martinez continues the destruction until Sullivan whispers sweet nothings in Corinos ear and Steve charges the ring to stop the beatings. That was a lot of time I will never get back. On the plus side, at least the storyline is starting to make a tiny bit more sense, but they need to hurry it up as Corino versus Whitmer has been going on for roughly 489 years now.

10) A) Weird little, but funny, Halloween ad for the website store has Dalton Castle dressing as one of Dem Boys while Mark Briscoe dresses as one of Castle’s Boys. Cute and funny and effective little commercial. Well done.

10) B) During the break, Steve Corino took the Golden Spike and was going to attack Ferrara and Cheeseburger, but shook off the power of Kevin Sullivan’s suggestion and dropped the spike as everyone else left the ring.

10) C) Main event is a tag team match between the Motor City Machineguns versus Naito and EVIL. They are playing up how beat up the MCMGs are after Ladder Wars 6. That sounds like Naito and EVIL will get the win.

10) D) I know I have mentioned my enjoying of Alex Shelley before. I also know I have mentioned how he reminds me of a young Chris Jericho. Well, how awesome would it be if Shelley wound up coming to the WWE where Jericho would take him under his wing and serve as his mentor? With how awesome Jericho has been during this friendship with Kevin Owens, I would love to see Alex Shelley carrying Jericho’s clipboard for a while. I think it would be amazingly entertaining and probably set up a ton of great matches.

10) E) Motor City Machineguns try to use their speed to take and keep advantage, but Naito and EVIL work on the injuries to slow them down and beat them up. Eventually, Sabin gets the hot tag and it’s bonzo gonzo. But EVIL and Naito are just too strong and Naito gets the pin with the Destino on Sabin.

 

Next week looks pretty good as well. The Addiction versus the Briscoes, the Six-man title tournament continues, and Jay White versus Kushida. Until then, have a good one!

Human. I think.