Thought Zero – Non-ROH related, but I saw that Emma was released by the WWE this weekend along with Summer Rae and Darren Young. I am not surprised about Young or Summer, they really didn’t have anything for them, plus they weren’t very good. But Emma was getting a push. She was getting herself over. She just introduced Asuka to the main roster. I am quite confused about that roster move. Unless they are reverting to heels in the women division being nothing but Mean Girls Redux. Moving on to ROH…
- We start with The Addiction badmouthing Jay Lethal and Kushida. Christopher Daniels drops a few vulgarities which get bleeped out adding a tad bit of energy to the promo. But overall, nothing that exciting to begin the show.
- And we go from a relatively tame opening promo to the entrance of the boring ROH champ Cody Rhodes. But don’t worry, he is just going to add boring commentary to the opening match. The opening match is actually Jonathan Gresham versus TK O’Ryan. The Kingdom have home-made signs that say “Conspiracy!” but I am not sure what that is all about.
- Gresham locks a hammerlock on O’Ryan within the first couple minutes and O’Ryan screams like his arm is being torn from his body. Come on, TK… There is no need to chew this much scenery this early.
- A couple commentary notes: 1. Cody has a pretty good Jesse “The Body” Ventura impersonation. 2. Cody, Colt Cabana, and Ian Riccaboni all share amazement that Vinny Marsaglia is allowed to bring a literal axe to the ring. It is the same thing that has been said the past few times he’s been on television, but it is pretty good stuff nonetheless. 3. Cody even calls for a petition to ban the axe.
- The match ends after the official sends the MotorCity Machine Guns backstage and follows with the rest of The Kingdom getting the same treatment. Taven and Marseglia delay however and eventually just charge the ring resulting in a 3-on-1 beatdown and giving Gresham the win by disqualification.
- Back from commercial break and Cody decides to address the crowd. Oh joy. He is calling himself a “company man” now that he has signed a contract with ROH. Okay, that’s pretty funny. He then calls out Scorpio Sky to give him a title shot since The Addiction attacked him and Kushida previously. Sky didn’t impress me much before, but I’ll give him another shot. However, he went from wrestling Kushida to Cody Rhodes, so I don’t have much faith in that.
- Sky gets a couple dives to start, but Cody is able to take control pretty easily. Sky does a couple moves which seem overly contrived and must be part of his signature routine, but that is countered to a LaBell Lock by Cody followed by a “Yes!” chant. They aren’t even trying to hide their hope that Brian Danielson shows up after his WWE contract expires. Eventually Sky taps out to Cody’s American Deathlock maneuver. This actually worked better for me than the Cheeseburger match he had recently because Cody never looked to be in danger of losing. As champion, he should look strong, and he did here.
- Now we get Kenny King on Coleman’s Pulpit. Caprice has lost the “fancy” stage and has a couple chairs in front of a blank wall. He does have the little crawl at the bottom of the screen with tweets coming in though, so that’s fun. Coleman references Kenny King’s time on The Bachelorette and wonders if ROH is just taking advantage of his new mainstream publicity. Pretty decent question actually. And they don’t shy away from the fact that Coleman and King were partners not too long ago. The vibe is friendly and works pretty darn well. Good work.
- The must really need to stretch for time because they just spent three minutes with the camera on Cabana and Riccaboni talking about what we literally just saw. Whoever is directing the show today needs to back away from the WWE tropes. Main event time – The Addiction versus Kushida and Jay Lethal. They go to break in the middle of Kazarian’s in-ring promo. Well, that was pretty rude.
- The Addiction stalls before any action takes place and decides to take the countout loss. But Kushida dives on both men before they can leave. Lethal and Kushida take control before we head to break. Kushida mocks Christopher Daniels’ time as Curry Man which goes over the head of most of the crowd but is actually pretty good stuff. Lethal gets to play Ricky Morton for a while but Kushida gets the hot tag. Then Kushida turns into Ricky Morton and Lethal makes the save. Kushida tags back to become Robert Gibson. Kushida eventally makes Christopher Daniel tap to the Hoverboard Lock.
And that’s all for today. Next week Kenny King defends against Mark Briscoe. Should be great! Have a good week!
