Thoughts Zero – We have a Champion’s Challenge tonight with all the tag team champion Briscoe Brothers taking on the ROH TV champion Kenny King and ROH World champion Dalton Castle. That should be a fun main event on this Supercard of Honor go-home show.
- Um, maybe it isn’t going to be the main event. In fact, we start the show with all the champions. And we also have the next ROH World Heavyweight champion Marty Scurll on commentary tonight. There seems to be something wrong with Marty’s headset microphone though as he sounds extremely raspy as he criticizes Ian Riccaboni for being in the tank for Castle.
- I’m not sure because it’s been a while, but it sounded like the Briscoes had a new theme song. They still never explained why Mark Briscoe decided to just go along with his brother’s new attitude, which was a big storyline for a while there. Don’t get me wrong, it is good having the Briscoes as a tag team, but tie up the loose ends, okay?
- Scurll admits he is a big fan of the Briscoes after Ian calls him out for cheering them on as they beat up Dalton Castle. It sounded genuinely disingenuous which was perfect. Plus, it was funny hearing Scurll try to start a “Man Up” chant.
- Scurll decides to add to the wrestling lexicon when Mark and Jay hit a risky double team move on Castle outside the ring. Instead of “risking their bodies,” Scurll points out that they are “Brisc-ing their bodies.” Okay, it doesn’t work as well in print, but it was funny. The outrageous eye patch Scurll is still sporting is also hilarious.
- Back from break and Castle finally gets a hot tag to Kenny King. King’s offense is cut off pretty quick due to the Briscoes’ effective tag team wrestling skills. Castle pisses off Mark by breaking up a pin attempt, and then Silas Young comes down to distract Kenny King and Jay Briscoe finishes him off with a Jay Driller. After the match, Silas Young stands over Kenny King holding the TV title. Then Marty Scurll comes in with the World title, looking like he was going to clock Castle with it from behind, but Castle turns around to realize that Scurll was just delivering the belt to him personally. That was nice of him.
- Cheeseburger is out next and he appears to have a new stylist. Sporting a Macho Man style cowboy hat, vest, and sunglasses, it is a different look for Burger. But once he takes off the extra stuff, it is still teeny tiny Burger. Cheeseburger is taking on Kikutaro who appears to be a comedy worker from Japan wearing a horrible mask. Kikutaro and Cheeseburger both use referee Paul Turner as a weapon, and then The Dawgs attack and beat down both wrestlers. Bully Ray comes down for some reason and the Dawgs run off.
- Back from commercial break and we get an update on the Women of Honor tournament. We get some highlights of Tenille Dashwood defeating Brandi Rhodes and then Sumie Sakai defeating Kagetsu to move on to the semifinals against each other. Now we have the last Quarterfinal match featuring Mayu Iwatani from Stardom versus Deonna Purrazzo. The winner of this match takes on Kelly Klein in the other semifinal match.
- Purrazzo and Iwatani have a hell of a match although Purrazzo was a little all over the place with her psychology. For example, she caught Iwatani coming off the top rope on the outside in an armbar. But then once back in the ring, she hit a brainbuster. Then she hit a wheelbarrow suplex follwed by two German suplexes in rolling succession. I think I would have preferred for her to stay focused on one part of the body.
- Iwatani hit a vicious snap dragon suplex and a huge top rope missle dropkick which looked solid. Purrazzo was able to reverse to an armbar, but Iwatani escaped. A few kicks later, Iwatani hit a bridging Dragon Lock suplex which looked pretty cool. Sorry, Purrazzo, but Iwantani versus Kelly Klein is the match this tournament needs.
- They run down the Supercard of Honor card, and it looks like a pretty solid card. There are a couple matches aside from the big matches (Kenny Omega versus Cody Rhodes, Dalton Castle versus Marty Scurll, etc) include Punishment Martinez versus Tomohiro Ishii and Hangman Page versus Kota Ibushi. The show ends with Cody coming out to badmouth Kenny Omega. That brings out Kenny Omega to counter with a promo of his own. And we are out with the predictable brawl and pull-apart. In fact, the pull-apart happens by the other members of the Bullet Club in ROH, with Hangman Page holding Cody back, the Young Bucks holding Omega back, and Marty Scurll standing in the middle directing traffic.
And that’s it for this week of Ring of Honor wrestling. Everyone enjoy the weekend of big-time wrestling events and I’ll see you next week!
