1. Kind of a strange match between Colt Cabana and Ricky Reyes. Reys looked decent and got a good amount of offense in, but it’s not likely to lead to anything for him. There was no real finishing sequence, with Cabana just getting the Colt .45 out of nowhere. With the rushed finish, I was expecting a post-match angle, but it didn’t happen. OK then.
2. Not the best promos from Corino or Cabana after their Big Bang tag match. Corino can do much better. Cabana didn’t come across credibly as an intense promo, when you consider he’s wrestling a pseudo-comedy style on TV every other week. I dug Steen’s calm, low delivery though.
3. Kyle Durden loses points for referring to Davey Richards as “the most dangerous of all the American Wolves.” All TWO of them, Kyle?
4. Nice backstage verbal confrontation between Kenny King and Richards. King’s pre-match segments with each of the American Wolves the past two weeks have really helped put over the importance of the Television Title Tournament, and all three men have looked good on the mic.
5. I haven’t seen much of the House of Truth, but I haven’t been terribly impressed with what I have seen. They have a couple of nifty double-team maneuvers and not much else. If ROH is looking to add some new blood to its tag-team scene, I would much rather see Cheech and Cloudy on a regular basis. Speaking of, where have they been? They had a couple of good TV matches not long ago, and haven’t been mentioned since (except in passing during this match).
6. Austin Aries always entertains on the mic, and this was no exception. I chuckled when he referred to Grizzly Redwood and Alex Payne as “top-level competition” without even hesitating. However, I thought the point was to address where he goes from here after dropping the title, and he didn’t do that. Basically, he talked some, and talked well, but didn’t really say anything.
7. Interestingly, Richards and Edwards were cast as the de facto faces in their respective semifinal matches, and it made perfect sense. The ROH crowd loves Davey, and Edwards got some sympathy for his hurt elbow and help from Kevin Steen being such a dick. Whatever the reasons, the defined roles really helped both matches.
8. This week’s semifinal wasn’t as good as last week’s, but still your typical really good ROH main event. King did a great job of hanging with Richards during on the mat – easier said than done, given all the counters they were pulling off. Davey is obviously going to go on to bigger things (If he doesn’t land flat on his head first, like he almost did on that Frankensteiner), but King’s performance this weekend in Dayton should go a long way in determining his future prospects as an ROH World Title contender.
9. ROH missed a great opportunity to put over the importance of the tournament even more by not having Eddie Edwards come out and stare down Richards, either from the entrance ramp or in the ring. I’m sure they’ll make up for it with a good backstage promo next week, but it would have been a really cool visual to end the show.
10. Middling episode this week. All the TV Title stuff was good, and it made me really want to see the final next week, but everything else just kind of fell flat, and ROH seems really overly reliant on video packages these days. Not as bad as the show from two weeks ago, but certainly not as good as last week’s offering.
