1. I liked Eddie Edwards breaking away from Shane Hagadorn, or at least showing signs that he is going to. The ROH fans obviously don’t want to boo Edwards, so as entertaining as he was as a prick during the Ten-Minute hunts (which had grown stale anyway), ROH is wise not to fight the crowd reactions. Plus, I prefer Edwards and Richards pursuing their singles goals and occasionally watching each others’ backs than another feud between former tag team partners.
2. I like the All-Night Express’ wheelbarrow-style spike piledriver. It looks even more vicious than a regular spike piledriver, in my opinion. Speaking of the All-Night Express, it’s good to see King and Titus out there with matching tights – a sure sign of a real tag team!
3. Very good opener between Edwards and King, as one would expect from those two. My only nitpick is that, during the middle portion of the match, there seemed to be a little too much of one guy hitting a big move, followed by laying around, followed by the other guy hitting a big move. Still, both guys hit some really nice offense, and I have no doubt they can have a better-flowing match.
4. I hate “you sold out!” chants, and fans who profess to be savvy, such as ROH’s, should know better. The average wrestler’s earning prime is criminally short, and unlike most careers, there is no pension or retirement plan waiting for these guys post-retirement. No one should begrudge a wrestler, particularly one as talented as Tyler Black, for trying to earn as much money as he can when he is still young.
5. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed Dave Prazak as much as I did during the Black-Mike Sydal match. His defense of Tyler Black’s business decision is perfectly in step with the immediately preceding thought, and his “vintage Tyler Black” line was great.
6. Speaking of Black vs. Sydal, it was a fun little extended squash, with Black looking clearly superior to Sydal the entire time while also letting the kid get in some quality token offense. I also enjoyed Black’s body language during the match, as he gave off the impression that he was above being out there and was simply fulfilling his contractual obligations.
7. I liked that Kevin Steen gave the Wolves’ (specifically, Davey’s) past history with Steenerico as the reason for chosing Davey as Generico’s “poison.” I do tend to appreciate ROH’s efforts at maintaining historical consistency.
8. For the first time in a while, ROH went a little heavy on the video packages again. On the bright side, each of the packages immediately led into a match or interview related to it in some form; however, if I’m not mistaken, ROH has previously shown these packages before. It did make the middle of the show drag a little.
9. High-quality main event between Generico and Davey Richards. It contained the selling issues that seem to rear their head in most Davey matches (which is apparently contagious, judging from Generico’s spotty selling of the knee), but they played off of their familiarity with each other with certain counters, worked in some hard-hitting offense, and had a pretty hot finishing sequence.
10. Good effort from ROH tonight. The opener and the main event were fun TV matches, Black’s squash of Sydal was actually pretty entertaining, and even though I wasn’t a fan of the video packages, I’m not sure trying to cram in a match or interview to further another storyline would have been a better use of ROH’s time. Sometimes, less is more.
