10 Thoughts On … Ring Of Honor March 17, 2018 (Will Ferrara Cosplays Rick Steiner, Bullet Club Shenanigans, A Bear!)

10 Thoughts, Reviews, Top Story

Thought Zero – Hello all. I’ve been absent. I don’t have a doctor’s note, but if you need one, I can get one if necessary. Let’s see what Ring of Honor has going on these days.

  1. Opening match is Coast 2 Coast versus The Dawgs (Rhett Titus and Will Ferrara). Beer City Bruiser and Brian Milonas are on guest commentary for some reason. All three of these teams would do well to have a nice little feud with each other. They are all fairly solid with some interesting potential, but they need to develop some to get the fans thoroughly behind them.
  2. Decent back and forth match with nothing much of note happening, but I will say that Ferrara is apparently trying out a Rick Steiner impression, complete with biting the tag rope, smacking his own head, etc. The Dawgs are trying to rely on comedy a little too much though. LSG kicked out of a frog splash by Titus in an odd move. I know they want to push C2C, but you don’t bury a huge move like that. Shaheem Ali gets the hot tag and C2C is able to finish off Will Ferrara. Post-match, C2C get attacked by Beer City Bruiser and Brian Milonas. I’m still not sold on Milonas, not because of what he can do, but because he and Bruiser are now being pushed as simply big fat guys. Not athletic and innovative wrestlers who happen to be large. Oh well, we’ll see where it goes.
  3. Hey, Dalton Castle must have won in his World Title defense against Jay Lethal because he is scheduled to fight Marty Scurll at Supercard of Honor. Scurll does a brief little promo dressed to the nines, including a cool-as-hell bow tie which says Villain on each side. After commercial, Castle cuts a response promo. Now, I never thought Castle would defeat Lethal, but I really doubt he retains against Scurll. And frankly, Scurll deserves that title for the work he’s been doing.
  4. Next up is a Woman of Honor tournament match between HZK and Mayu Iwatani. This tournament feels like it has been going on forever, but apparently this is still a first round match. This maych is from a Stardom event in Osaka, Japan. Stardom is a pretty good working relationship for Ring of Honor to have if they want to make Women of Honor serious. I openly admit not knowing much about HZK or Mayu Iwatani, but Ian Riccaboni is really talking them up, especially Iwatani. And just like that, Iwatani does something which makes me say “Holy Shit,” as she hits a running low dropkick on HZK which knocks her straight through the ropes and to the floor. That was … ow…
  5. We take a commercial break and when we return HZK has control, grounding Iwatani with a chinlock and then a rolling leg scissors which ends in a dizzying pin attempt. Iwatani tries a Northern Lights suplex which gets countered into a big DDT. HZK then hits a sweet Michinoku Driver and a frog splash butt drop. Very impressive sequence there. Some more back and forth, including a cool Crucifix Driver by Iwatani. Iwatani eventually gets the pin after a bridging dragon suplex and she moves forward in the tournament. Both of these women were just throwing bombs out there and were very impressive.
  6. The main event is a 10-man tag team match between The Addiction and The Kingdom versus Bullet Club (represented by The Young Bucks, Hangman Page, Marty Scurll, and Cody Rhodes). I would say that Scorpio Sky’s absence at his SoCal Uncensored partners’ side would be conspicuous, if I cared about Scorpio Sky. The Villain doesn’t bother with his plague match today, but does have a cool Villain bandana he’s wearing.
  7. Cody takes a separate entrance from the rest of Bullet Club, allowing Cabana and Riccaboni to push the storyline of Cody’s arrogance is what is breaking Bullet Club apart. But Cody has t-shirts made up for the rest of the team which says “Bullet Club is fine.” Yeah… not the best catchphrase. It basically is a sledgehammer of a plot device. But he does get everyone to wear the t-shirts, so I guess that’s a win for Cody.
  8. The match is just chaos from the get-go with everyone diving onto each other and hitting wild moves. But wait, Matt Jackson notices Cody has the word “leader” on his tights. But Cody hits a diplomatic superkick on Christopher Daniels which seems to be enough for Matt. A little further into the match Kazarian and Page reignite their hatred for each other with some passionate fisticuffs. And a little while later, Cody is taking a significant amount of punishment. I guess that’s another way to show you are leadership material.
  9. I want to give Ring of Honor and Matt Taven some major props for their work in building up his character. I know the purpose of this match is to build up the Bullet Club tension and promote Cody versus Kenny Omega. But they have really made Taven seem like a big time star. Like, so much so that I buy him as a main event star now. Good work there. By the way, Bullet Club won after some Scorpio Sky interference backfired. The Kingdom and SoCal Uncensored start beating on each other as the show ends.
  10. Yes, I can not finish this 10 Thoughts without mentioning the fact that Cody not only has his own entrance, and that he brings Brandi to the ring as well, but he has his own personal mascot now. On a conceptual level, that is awesome. But the mascot is a guy in a bear suit named “Bury the Bear” or something like that. Plus, he did a top rope dive onto everyone in the middle of the match. If you want people to boo Cody, stop having his character do weirdly interesting out-of-the-box things that make people cheer him, like having a daredevil personal mascot. I’m not sure it all works, but it is interesting.

I will be back next week. Sorry for the missed episodes. I’ll be better. I may also have a Fantasy Book regarding WrestleMania sometime soon. Until next week…

 

 

Human. I think.