10 Thoughts on … Ring of Honor May 28, 2016 (ACH, The Addiction, The Elite, and Fun with Announcing)

10 Thoughts, Top Story

Thought Zero – We’re back to regular programming on Ring of Honor television (thank God) and apparently they’ve fed all the announcers some form of NZT as they’re nailing insights left and right. Let’s get to it.

1) We start off with a replay of the dumb Bullet Club superkick party from the end of Global Wars. By the way, I want to point out that even when the referee was pulled out of the ring., Jay Lethal still never tapped out to Colt Cabana. Why do I point that out? Because whatever else this company is doing, they still have the best champion in all of wrestling right now.

2) Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness are the main announcers tonight, but there will be guest announcers too, don’t you worry. They run down today’s card and tease the “big” thing the Bullet Club did the other day. No, not the Adam Cole thing. Ooo, I can’t wait.

3) Match #1 is Lio Rush versus ACH. I’m still not sold on Rush. We see a flashback to Dearborn, Michigan where ACH broke up with Matt Sydal. Funny moment when Kevin Kelly asks Nigel if he is a big fan of anime, and Nigel’s response is, “Uhhhhhhh…” I laughed at least. Here is our first guest announcer of the night, Silas Young. Why? Not sure, to be honest. Seems like a pretty blah way to start a new program for Young, but at least it isn’t more of his feud with Dalton Castle and the boys, so I’ll take it.

4) Silas starts out his commentary with a dangerously cliche cranky old man complaint that ACH is always playing video games in the back. He saves it though when he comments that ACH and Lio Rush are just “video game wrestlers” and after Lio Rush flipped onto ACH outside the ring he said, “Oh, that’s supposed to excite me? He can do a flip, good for him.” Love it!

4) A) Nigel tries to help out by leading Silas Young to his talking point that these guys are not “real men” and Silas continues about how young Lio Rush is. When Rush goes for a pin and ACH kicks out, Nigel points out he didn’t put enough weight on ACH’s shoulders. Silas then apparently channels me and says, “because he’s thinking about his next flip and how to impress the fans,” and later (about ACH), “he’s too worried about getting the applause from the fans than getting a victory.” And Nigel agrees that he makes a fair point.

4)B) I have basically given up on the match itself because I am loving this commentary so much. The match is your basic flippy-flippy match with Lio Rush with not much opportunity for ACH to do some more of his high impact moves. ACH does eventually win after escaping Lio Rush’s stupid finisher, and then hitting a superkick, brainbuster, and the Midnight Star.

5) Post-match, Silas Young hits the ring to bad mouth Lio Rush and ACH sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong, so Silas Young beats him down and hits Misery on him. And just like I thought, we seem to have a new program beginning with Silas Young and ACH. Just keep Lio Rush out of it and it might be pretty good.

6) We’re back with clips of how The Addiction stole the Tag Team titles from War Machine, making them the two-time World Tag Team Champions of the World. Kevin Kelly mentions that was the third title defense by War Machine in 24 hours, because War Machine wanted to prove they were fighting champions. Nigel mentions he told them they didn’t have to put the belts on the line, but they did anyway. Listening between the lines, they are basically saying that War Machine are tough but stupid. Anyway, The Addiction comes out and talks for a while until the Motor City Machine Guns and Roppongi Vice come out. Somehow this sets up a three-way tag team match where is anyone pins The Addiction, they will get a tag title shot. Before that though, Trent Baretta takes the microphone which leads into another sub-thought.

6)A) While Baretta is not technically a guest announcer, he does have a microphone. He proceeds to mock most wrestling promos by talking about now is the time he is supposed to be saying that they deserve a title shot too and maybe he would be calling The Addiction cowards or something. However, then Baretta calls Daniels old and he blows up and sets up the three-way match. Nigel basically admits his job is easy since Daniels just made the number one contendership match on his own.

7) Nigel then takes another dose of NZT and states that The Addiction would be smart to stay on the outside so as to not be pinned by either of these two teams. Well, it would have made more sense not to make the match in the first place, but so be it.

7)A) Kevin Kelly then speaks the truth and points out that before winning the titles, The Addiction hadn’t won a match in about two months ad had actually lost the night before at Global Wars to Grandpa Liger and Cheeseburger! Not really a good way to sell your new champs there, but I guess they are setting up a “beatable champions” storyline.

7)B) Nigel piles on The Addiction by outright saying that they made a mistake to put up a title shot and then to involve themselves in the match when they didn’t need to.

7)C) There is nothing wrong with the match, but again, I don’t really care about it because the commentary is awesome. The finish comes with the Motor City Machineguns pinning Christopher Daniels. So I guess we have a match set for Best in the World now. One last thought on this match though, Christopher Daniels’ Best Moonsault Ever may not be THE best, but it is right up there.

8) Going to break, Roderick Strong cuts a promo on Jay Briscoe for a house show coming up in a week or so. Sorta random, and as far as I can tell, there is no real issue between the two of them. But Strong’s lack of charisma is very evident here. I know he is a good wrestler, but maybe someone can slap a new gimmick on him, or a change of scenery might be good for him. I am not sure, but he just doesn’t scream star at me. In fact, I don’t know what or why he is screaming at me, and that’s a problem.

9) We’re back and Nigel McGuinness announces that he made a Fight Without Honor match for Best in the World between BJ Whitmer and Steve Corino. I thought Corino’s neck wouldn’t hold up to wrestling again? And apparently Whitmer posted footage on YouTube of him talking to Corino’s wife and holding his newborn? All I can say is, please please please let this be the end of this damn feud. I don’t care about the match, but whomever is enjoying this storyline backstage, please allow this to be the finale of it and let’s move on with our lives.

9)A) I forgot to mention the Matt Taven, of all people, is out at the commentary table now. He hasn’t said anything yet, but is making funny faces during Nigel’s announcement.

10) Now we are shown footage of the Bullet Club in Dearborn, MI where they challenge a bunch of ROH guys to a match. Adam Page volunteers to help out the ROH guys, but doesn’t show up at match time (which the Bullet Club guys take credit for knocking him out before the match). Colt Cabana takes his place and it is breaking down in Dearborn. At the end of the match though, with the Bullet Club surrounding Jay Briscoe in the ring, Adam Page makes the save with a steel chair. Jay thanks him and gives him some love, but wait, it’s a swerve! Apparently, if your name is Adam, you can join the Bullet Club! Page then hits a sick Rite of Passage on Briscoe onto a table that doesn’t break! Then the rest of the Bullet Club uses zip-ties and destroys everyone else while Adam Page hangs Chris Sabin with a noose! Well, they did a decent job of making Page look dangerous, I will say that.

10)A) Main event time is Hiroshi Tanahashi, Michael Elgin, and Yoshi Tatsu versus The Elite. Nigel makes an off-hand comment that if he were in the Bullet Club and not part of the elite, he would take umbrage to that. First, he used the word “umbrage” and I applaud him for that. Second, damn straight, Nigel! Why aren’t more announcers willing to call out the logical inconsistencies in wrestling storyline events?

10)B) And as The Elite makes their way out to the ring, Matt Taven slays me by saying, “Is this the Wolfpak? NWO Japan? The LWO? What part of the Bullet Club is this? This is getting kind of ridiculous these days.” With that, it should be the end of the show because it is not going to get better than that.

10)C) The match is good, as expected. But Taven keeps cracking me up on commentary. He keeps talking about The Kingdom, even though it is really only him in The Kingdom now. He also says the Young Bucks look like scared little teenagers. Then, “Big Mike – Donkey Kong slapping the ring there.” After, when he calls a move by Elgin, he says, “BIG MIKE! If you don’t know who it is, just read his tights.”

10)D) One-winged angel by Omega on Tatsu finishing things up. Then the rest of the Bullet Club come out, but Taven says, “That’s weird. Where’s Adam Cole? Why doesn’t he come out?” Ha. Finally, as the credits fade out, we hear Matt Taven say, “I’m going to put an end to these cartoon characters.” Not sure who he was directing that towards, but okay.

 

And that’s all she wrote for this week. A lot of stuff was thrown out there this week and I didn’t even mention that they showed the clip of Bobby Fish winning the ROH TV title and announced the Jay Lethal versus Jay Briscoe rematch at Best in the World. That is still their best money match, I would say, so good call on that. And next week, Jay Lethal versus Donovan Dijak, so they will finally pay that one off. Maybe we will see the return of Truth Martini, who knows…

Overall, another fun week of Ring of Honor television. The in-ring action was good, but the glory of this week goes to the announce team. Very fun indeed. Until next week…

 

Human. I think.