Last Friday ROH produced one of those magic moments in Kevin Steen and El Generico finally winning the ROH Tag Team Titles. Like Nigel McGuinness, they teased the audience with several plausible false finishes, with both teams drawing on their greatest hits of offense of the whole year. They took each other with all the seriousness they warranted more established guys like the Briscoes. The crowd was so hot, wanting to see the title change happen so badly but not being to be able to be sure of it until the three count. They were furious (and I was with them) when it looked like Steen & Generico would only get a near-three. They were alive for the teased top rope Brainbuster. When they hit their trademark combo and finally won, you couldn’t have asked for a better way to start a reign.
If you don’t want to think about what comes next, don’t. Just let it soak in and wait a couple months for it to hit PPV. If you didn’t read my review but are a fan of that team, I guarantee you it’s worth your money. Just celebrate it.
If you’re like me and can’t help but think about it, though, you have wonder about challengers. If this reign is going to last, who is going to challenge them? ROH doesn’t have many uppertier teams.
Black & Jacobs are not done with those belts. If Black is being primed for a singles run as a good guy then a failed attempt to recapture the belts would help split them up. If he’s not, then he and Jacobs should want their titles back for the power they grant the Age of the Fall. It’s easy motivation to have a team want back what they lose.
Black & Jacobs could potentially even win the belts back. We don’t know this will last, though we kind of hope for it, as ROH needs some champions its fans are supposed to (and want to) cheer. Steen & Generico have the charisma, the speed, the moves and the dynamic storytelling ability to fill that role.
The Briscoes won the scramble on the Boston PPV, and with their strong record they could be in line to challenge Steen & Generico at the next taping. They’re already hitting them up for a title match at Survival of the Fittest (a show that looks pretty great). These two teams burned out badly against each other in 2007, producing amazing matches but doing so much to each other that the Briscoes still haven’t really recovered from the overkill. The hope is that their recent promos about brawling will signify tinkering with their style, because if they can build their big spots their matches could be routinely amazing again.
In fact, a rematch with the Briscoes would be even hotter thanks to the tag title hotshot earlier this year. ROH is almost too fond of the Briscoes, and the speculation that they could win them back (and perhaps the burning desire to see them not do so) would add to a tag title match. If written smartly, one failed attempt by the brothers could spin over into a full-on storyline with them chasing the gold for a change. If they finish their first 2008 match right and ROH plays off it properly, this could ignite another series (though hopefully one with fewer encounters than last time).
But after Age of the Fall and the Briscoes, who is a legitimate threat to the new champions? Who do they even have to face?
Bryan Danielson & Austin Aries make a heck of a team. Their match against Jacobs & Black at Respect is Earned 2 might have been better than Steen & Generico’s in Boston. They are in a unique position, being two of the most popular guys in ROH, such that fans immediately buy them as contenders even if they don’t have a good record. They’re smart enough and talented enough that they can make big matches work. Much as Steen & Generico main-eventing a PPV where Aries opened the show and Danielson wrestled in the middle made a statement of confidence in newer stars, beating the two aces could be good, and could produce a DVD-selling match.
But Danielson & Aries are also a throw-together team. They’re a star-power team. They’re ROH’s Hogan and Savage, or Undertaker and Rock. They don’t need to, shouldn’t and almost certainly won’t win the titles. They’re a guaranteed great match, but not as much of a legitimate threat.
ROH also went the standard route of having successful tag team guys lose in singles title matches. On Saturday, Steen lost to Go Shiozaki for the FIP belt and Generico lost to McGuinness for the ROH belt. Tag team champs choking in singles title matches is nothing new: ROH did it with Aries & Strong, the Briscoes and Black & Jacobs. In that same vein, these losses validate the singles contenders, who can then demand tag title matches and lose those. Go and McGuinness are now in position to challenge. McGuinness already has.
McGuinness also ain’t winning, though he and whoever he picks for a partner may give Steen & Generico another main-event slot and pad another night. It may even lay the groundwork for Steen’s fourth ROH World Title shot.
Sweet & Sour Inc. has a small reservoir of talent, but they all wrestle in throw-togethers. Go Shiozaki could pair with any of them, and I admit a strange fascination with the possibility of Go & Davey Richards as a hit squad. Any of Pearce, Hero, Hagadorn, Richards, Edwards and Go can tag up, but frankly none are particularly believable as tag title threats. Since Go beat Steen in an FIP title defense on Saturday he can claim a shot, but it’ll be a filler shot unless he and his partner do something amazing.
The Murder City Machine Guns will be in the first Iron Team Match in October, a somewhat ridiculous-sounding match that will last a half an hour and make four teams that normally can’t pin each other once in that time frame scramble for high scores. If they win, they could definitely come back for a hot match-up, and if ROH plays on Morishima’s title victory from 2007, a TNA team winning the belts might be more believable.
Chris Hero & Davey Richards are also in that Iron Team Match, though the chance of them winning, much less even winning and turning themselves into a serious threat, is substantially less likely.
All these little filler matches and potential main events could buy ROH time as they reform a good team or form a new solid team. I don’t know if that means pasting Jigsaw and Erick Stevens together and letting them tear it up, or reforming Aries & Strong now that they’re both good guys. The hitch will be not just teaming up two guys who aren’t together now, but making them a believable force and getting them to have the quality of matches on par with Age of the Fall and the Briscoes. And if some new team, old team or team of outsiders doesn’t measure up, ROH will see a nasty backlash.
Personally, I’d love to see Jack Evans return to ROH, grab Roderick Strong, and run at Steen & Generico. Evans will return eventually and the Vulture Squad is a husk. Strong & Evans is a team that never got its proper due and is capable of bouncing between striking, technical wrestling, power and flying in fantastic ways. Pro Wrestling Guerrilla had a great thing on their hands for a very short time earlier this year, and hopefully ROH will get it for longer eventually.
But regardless of who you want the most, it is time to build some team from below. You’ve got to get fresh blood to the top or else the brain dies. Steen & Generico have all the tools to make great matches so long as ROH and their roster can support them.
