10 Thoughts on … Ring of Honor June 24, 2017 (Flip Gordon, Silas Young Versus Bobby Fish, Punishment Martinez Versus Jay White)

10 Thoughts, Reviews, Top Story

Thought Zero – Ring of Honor, what have you done? The Best in the World PPV was this past Friday and the big news coming out of it is that Cody Rhodes is your new ROH World Heavyweight Champion. Also, the mostly inconsequential 6-man titles changed hands again, this time from the Briscoes and Bully Ray to The Boys and Dalton Castle. Let’s see how ROH decides to handle these changes going forward.Now, on to the pre-taped television episode which will have nothing to do with this recent PPV.

1) Alex Shelley is joining Colt Cabana and Ian Riccaboni on commentary, which just made the audio of this show that much more tolerable. Although he does talk a lot about Search and Destroy which is not that exciting.

2) Match #1 should be a fun one. Jonathan Gresham takes on Flip Gordon! This is only my second viewing of Flip Gordon but I was very impressed last time. Plus, I think I got all of the “flip” jokes out of my system last time, but I am not sure Colt Cabana did. Riccaboni announces that Flip Gordon is the newest Ring of Honor signee. That is very good news for ROH.

3) Gordon hit a cool looking springboard sling blade about half way through the match. He followed that up with a few very high flying moves, including one dive to the outside that was about as high as I have ever seen a wrestler dive off the top rope. Gordon reminds me a lot of Matt Sydal actually, which is interesting since the first match I saw of his was against Matt Sydal. Well, Gresham got the victory with the Octopus hold, but Shelley came in and gave Gordon a little pep talk and everyone shook hands.

4) Back from break and Alex Shelley has left the announce table. Thats a shame. We get a brief video package of Kushida winning the TV title and then we move into a video package for Josh “The Goods” Woods. Woods talks about winning the Top Prospect tournament but he can’t get his title opportunity because Kushida is over in Japan. So, he decides to challenge Jay Briscoe instead. Okay…

5) The next match is Silas Young versus Bobby Fish again. I wonder if this one will reach the level of crazy violence like their throwdown a few months back. Bobby Fish has been treading water a bit ever since he lost the TV title. He still puts on strong matches but seems to be lacking direction. His motivations lately are “I’m mad at Silas Young,” and “Silas Young pisses me off.” But Silas Young seems to have a lot of wrestlers challenging him with that motivation.

6) Riccaboni and Cabana talk about the roll that Silas Young has been on during the past two years or so. That is good to hear. I have no idea if ROH is planning on actually giving him a title at some point, but Young really has been the MVP of Ring of Honor for a while now. Another good and hard-hitting match between these two. They have some very good chemistry and their styles work very well together. And their matches do not feel repetitive. In fact, this one was probably the best of their series of matches I’ve seen. Silas Young picks up the victory with Misery. Silas tries to shake Fish’s hand after the match, but Fish shoves him away.

7) FYI – There is a no-DQ match between Adam Cole and Marty Scurll on Ring of Honor’s On-Demand service. That may be worthwhile.

8) Punishment Martinez takes on Jay White in today’s main event. Ian describes this match as a grudge match. Just like he described the Young vs. Fish match right before it. I don’t doubt two straight matches can be grudge matches, but maybe someone wants to get Ian a thesaurus for his birthday.

9) Jay White has advantage for a good portion early in this match. However, it never appears that Martinez is in too much trouble. In fact, Cabana makes a point that for every 3-4 forearms or moves White hits, Martinez counters with one big move that evens things out. White hits an impressive Flatliner (as called by Riccaboni, very nice) and dead lift German suplex going into commercial break.

10) After the commercial, Martinez chokeslams White on the ring apron and gains control. White is able to fight back though and both men wind up hitting some big falls for some near falls. White gets the duke with a roll up, but they keep fighting after the match. Martinez then does two of the most badass things I have ever seen. He gets advantage of White outside the ring, takes him over to a table and tells the people sitting there to “Move or Die.” That is awesome. Then, being sick of Jay White’s shit and cheap victories over him, picks White up and puts him through the table with a huge Last Ride Powerbomb. He also then makes the throat slash gesture as he continues to try to mimic The Undertaker. Frankly, if you are going to choose to channel someone to be a scary badass, The Undertaker is definitely a good choice.

 

And that’s all for this week. I’ll be back towards the end of the week with another Fantasy Book where we will try to rebuild Bayley. Until then…

 

Human. I think.