Thought Zero – Greetings all. We have a new week of Ring of Honor wrestling to watch and we may have a couple surprises. Let’s find out.
1) We start with a brief recap of Christopher Daniels winning the world title from Adam Cole at the 15th Anniversary show. And our first action sees the Addiction come out to the ring to celebrate Daniels’ victory. With an appletini! And the appletini gets a chant from the crowd! Love it. Kazarian announces Daniels as the new ROH World Champion of the World. That never gets old. And here comes Dalton Castle to toast Daniels’ win and remind him that he has a title opportunity coming. Before long, Adam Cole and the Young Bucks come out to talk and this sets up a six man match for later.
2) Cole is sporting a new t-shirt which brands the Cole and Jacksons grouping as the SuperKliq. I have to admit, that is a pretty good name. And it makes you wonder, in the eventual Adam Cole versus Kenny Omega showdown, which side will the Young Bucks choose? Their SuperKliq partner or their Elite partner?
3) The announcers tease a tag team title match tonight between the Briscoes and the Hardy Boyz. That’s a big time match there. I missed where the Hardys won the belts, but I am sure a time-traveling drone was involved. And maybe Matt Hardy’s kid. Hopefully we will get to see the Briscoes destroy those broken Hardys.
4) By the way, the announce team today is Ian Riccaboni and Kevin Kelly. Kevin! Welcome back, even if it is only for today. We’ve missed you. Kelly is working the color commentary post tonight, but even so he is a welcome voice at that table.
5) Back from break and Kenny King interrupts a Marty Scurll promo. Well, actually he is courteous enough to wait for Scurll to finish before barging in. That’s nice. King challenges Scurll and even though Scurll had already dropped out of character post-promo, he accepts Kenny King’s challenge. That should be a very good match itself, but they need to keep that belt on Scurll for a long time in my mind. He’s just that good.
6) The Hardys apparently have the ROH tag team titles and the Young Bucks fake Superkick Party champions belts. Okay then. I just figured out why I dislike the Hardys here. Their new “broken” characters could be interesting on their own. I am not opposed to the Hardys changing their old characters. Matt Hardy has done it successfully a couple times already. But then they wrestle. And they still wrestle the same, old, weak, spot-fest offensive style they always have. If you are going to change your look, your character, etc., at least change your wrestling style a bit as well.
7) Seriously, isn’t Jeff’s Whisper in the Wind look like one of the softest moves ever? I think Matt tries (with the crazed biting and all), but Jeff just still looks lazy and bored in there. I mean, I may not like the weird, outside the ring craziness of Broken Matt Hardy, but it is different, and he really seems to commit. (Actually, maybe that should be the Hardys’ new team name – Crazy and Lazy.)
8) Kevin Kelly with a nice little reminder that Matt Hardy has been here in Ring of Honor before. He runs down when Matt was part of SCUM and tried to take over and destroy the company. He forgot to mention the days of The Kingdom, but that’s okay. The Briscoes seem to be working at a much slower pace today due to their opponents. We wind up getting a couple cool spots, but not a very energetic match. One very cool spot had Jay Briscoe hoisting Matt Hardy on his shoulders while Mark Briscoe went to the top to hit a Doomsday Device. Jeff Hardy ran over and pushed Mark off the top rope, but Mark landed on the ring apron and with a slight turn by Jay, they hit a springboard Doomsday Device. Unfortunately, Jeff was able to break up the pin. Almost immidiately after, the Hardys hit a Twist of Fate/Swanton Bomb combo. But Mark Briscoe turned Matt over and almost got a three count. The Hardys wind up winning with a backslide into a double leg drop pin combination. Mark Briscoe is really underappreciated in his work.
9) The Young Bucks come out and make their match with the Hardyz at Supercard of Honor a ladder match. Okay then.
10) Back from break and the six-man tag match has already started with everyone punching each other. Early on, the SuperKliq held control, including a triple powerbomb outside onto the ring apron. We also get your typical humor spots and contrived triple team moves. Honestly though, this match never really got going. Castle was taking a nap most of the match and it was only until the end of the match where he started suplexing everyone. That seemed to push everyone into high gear as we started seeing the combination finishing maneuvers sequences so common in these types of matches. Dalton Castle got the win on Adam Cole with Bangarang. Not a bad match by any means, but not what one would hope for out of these six men.
Overall, another fun hour. It tried its damnedest to set up the main events for Supercard of Honor, which is only a week away, so in that regard, I guess it worked. But it could have been much more. I feel like they gave away the Briscoes versus the Hardyz for free, and that match deserved a bigger build, I think. It was nice to hear Kevin Kelly again though. Until next week….
