Thought Zero – Stuff happens in life that you can not always control. So what do you do? You plug away. You keep moving forward. Why? Because there is no other choice. You take the next step because the earth is scorched behind you. If you stop, you burn. So you continue on until you find a new direction. Me? I think I will go up.
1) Thought Zero had nothing to do with Ring of Honor wrestling. Or my life. Or anything really. However, Ring of Honor is bringing us a “special” episode, which means older matches and nothing current about this past Friday’s Final Battle PPV. So the quality of the show will all boil down to the quality of the matches.
2) We start with, Oh God, Cheeseburger. He will be teaming with Will Ferrara (poor guy) and they are being accompanied by Joey Daddiego. What? When did that happen? Bobby Cruise announces the team to be 346 pounds, of which, 286 pounds must be Will Ferrara. Or maybe they added in Daddiego also. They are facing the Tempura Boyz. I’ve never seen the Tempura Boyz before, but I know they were Young Lions in NJPW at some point in the past, but that’s about all I know. They do seem to have some dirty tricks and stuff, making them a quick true heel team, which is interesting.
3) Daddiego is at the announce table with Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness. From the sound of things, apparently Daddiego is the new trainer or nutritionist of Cheeseburger and Ferrara. Yes, that is slightly odd. Back to the match, it was a fast and pretty fun match (with less Cheeseburger annoyance than normal). The Tempora Boyz won with a superkick/package piledriver combo.
4) After the match, Donovan Dijak and Prince Nana come out and Nana forces Dijak to attack Ferrara. Wasn’t Ferrara one of the guys Nana gave those mysterious envelopes to about a year ago? Whatever happened to that? Anyway, Dijak looks less than pleased, but kills Ferrara anyway. Daddiego comes in and challenges Dijak and we have a match of former House of Truth members. Prince Nana is apparently not happy with Dijak lately according to Kevin Kelly. They are also pushing the struggle that Dijak is feeling by having to do the bidding of his manager who apparently hates him because he loses a bunch. Well, that is a pretty decent reason for your manager to be mad, Dijak. As for Cheeseburger, Ferrara, and Daddiego, well, that was not a very good showing.
5) We have an ROH recap now. That’s good, because we need it. The Cabinet is now called The Rebellion. And they beat up the Motor City Machineguns and Donovan Dijak recently. Not sure where they are going with this, but I will give it a shot because it is hell of a lot less annoying than The Cabinet gimmick. And then we have a Kevin Sullivan/BJ Whitmer/Steve Corino montage where Sullivan and Whitmer invite Corino to join them and “correct the universe” or some BS.
6) That leads into a match involving Punishment Martinez. At least the guy can wrestle and not just exist as wrestling poop emojis. Oh, Whitmer is going to tag with Martinez. Hopefully Whitmer will let Martinez handle most of the heavy lifting. They are taking on War Machine. You know what? This has potential, especially if Whitmer doesn’t get too involved. Whitmer and Martinez attack first, but War Machine quickly gain the advantage. Hansen pulls a couple of tables from under the ring for some reason. And it’s a pier 6 brawl at ringside. No one seems interested in going back into the ring. Uh oh, Rowe is setting up a table. No, I was wrong, Rowe is setting up a second table also. Why hasn’t this match been thrown out yet?
7) Back from break and everyone is back in the ring. I will say this, Whitmer’s new all-white gear is pretty cool in a evil messiah type way. Finally this match gets tossed when both Whitmer and Rowe push down the referee. Then Whitmer hit the ref with a big boot before Martinez puts Rowe through both tables with a chokeslam from the apron. Then Kevin Sullivan starts talking to Hansen, calling him Todd and he apparently has a history with him. Oh, please, don’t drag Hansen into this shit. And then Steve Corino (still being called Mukon or something) comes out and Sullivan whispers in his ear. Then they leave Corino and Hasen in the ring alone together. And nothing happens. Wow! What an elaborate waste of time!
8) Women of Honor special is next week! I am actually very excited about that. The last Women of Honor special was pretty damn good. Let’s see if they can replicate it.
9) The main event is a weird miss-mash of people as the Motor City Machineguns, Lio Rush, and Jay White are going to take on Jay and Mark Briscoe, Silas Young, and Jay Lethal. Nigel and Kevin are really trying to push this as the embodiment of Ring of Honor wrestling. For those who are curious about these things, Jay White has still not cut his hair, so we keep getting the hair flip of distraction. As expected, this is a crazy spot fest to start with not a lot of strategy to speak of.
10) Jay Lethal is taking most of the beating through the whole of the match. That’s not a very nice way to treat the BEST wrestler on your roster. We also see some interesting quadruple-team moves, including a sick looking “quartet of dropkicks” as Kevin Kelly calls it. Finally, Lethal tags in Silas Young and he just starts killing Lio Rush and the Briscoes go on the attack from there. The Rebellion is halfway down the ramp watching the match, and I still don’t know what the goal of this group is. Here’s the issue with a match that has no real psychology to it. The crowd stays silent in between the big spots, because they know the big spots are all there is. And that is a shame because it makes the match seem less interesting than it is. Oh, we took a commercial break and The Rebellion is no longer here. But Jay Lethal is back in the ring selling for Lio Rush. Rush did an innovative block of a cutter though. Basically, he got his hands down and was able to do a handstand instead of crashing all the way down. After more multiple chaos spots, Jay White continues working on Lethal. Warm tag to Jay Briscoe and more chaos spots. This is too hectic to keep up with. Jay White finishes with the Kiwi Krusher on Mark Briscoe. Not too bad overall, but no story to speak of.
Overall, not a bad episode. I didn’t need the Kevin Sullivan junk, but even with that (and Cheeseburger) it was still a pretty good show.
Hey, Ring of Honor also had a PPV this past week. Here are some quick and dirty results and a couple quick thoughts.
- The Rebellion defeated the Motor City Machineguns and Donovan Dijak. The MCMGs can’t buy a win these days.
- Silas Young defeated Jushin “Thunder” Liger. And the mini-Silas Young push continues.
- Dalton Castle defeated Colt Cabana. I have no problem with this. Cabana does nothing for me and Castle is still super-over.
- Cody Rhodes defeated Jay Lethal. I am still not pleased with Lethal being used as fodder for Cody’s debut. Also, Cody went full-heel during and after the match, destroying things, beating up people, throwing beer, etc. Not really sure what any of this is about.
- The Kingdom (the new Matt Taven version) of Matt Taven, Vinny Marseglia, and TK O’Ryan defeated Lio Rush, Jay White, and Kushida for win the new ROH 6-man tag team titles. The new belts are not too bad, but I still don’t have any real idea how to differentiate The Kingdom from anyone else. And with Lio Rush replacing ACH in the match, I guess we can say goodbye to the ROH superhero.
- Marty Scurll defeated Will Ospreay and Dragon Lee to retain the ROH TV title. The match was supposed to be a four-way match, but Bobby Fish did not compete as he flew home to tend to a death in the family. I hope they keep these guys around as much as possible. They bring a lot of energy and athleticism and a nice jolt of youth into an aging roster (I’m looking at you Christopher Daniels).
- The Young Bucks defeated the Briscoes to retain the ROH tag team titles. The bigger story was after the match when “Broken” Matt Hardy appeared on the screen and basically challenged “The Bucks of Youth” and the Briscoes. Then he threatened that he and Brother Nero would come to ROH to “render you ramshackle rednecks and spot monkeys obsolete!” Then the crowd chanted “Delete” with him. I’m torn on this. Obviously, the Hardys have something “different” going on over in TNA, but do I want that crap in ROH? They are past their prime, and I just got done saying this company needed more youth. I don’t know, I will give it a wait and see.
- The main event had Kyle O’Reilly defeating Adam Cole to win the Ring of Honor World Title. I’m glad to see O’Reilly win as his work in consistently outstanding in the ring, but I am not sure where they go with this. Maybe O’Reilly is a set up to someone else holding the strap. What does Cole do now? Does he bring in more Bullet Club reinforcements and go back after O’Reilly? Does he go over to Japan for a little while? Who are O’Reilly’s top challengers even? Jay Lethal. Maybe Jay Briscoe. Another Adam Cole match, obviously. But who else? Maybe Dalton Castle? Freshly heel Colt Cabana? Even Silas Young could challenge. But other than maybe another match against Lethal and/or one against Briscoe, none of these options screams main event to me. But, I am definitely open to giving this a shot.
See you all next week!
