10 Thoughts On … Ring Of Honor December 16, 2017 (The Addiction, Coast 2 Coast, Best Friends Versus The Elite)

10 Thoughts, Reviews, Top Story

Thought Zero – Final Battle was this past Friday, and there were a few notable items coming out of it. I’ll get to those towards the end of the column. But first, let’s see what ROH has for our television viewing today.

1) Our first match is The Addiction versus Coast 2 Coast. We see the Tale of the Tape and I am surprised at the height of C2C. They are’t huge, they are 6’0″ and 6’2″, but they just seemed much smaller, you know?

2) Colt Cabana talks about how The Addiction seem to be out of sorts lately to try to convince us that Coast 2 Coast has a chance. Yeah, I’m not really buying that. The Addiction has started spitting at their opponents more though, if anyone cares.

3) The Addiction get the duke even after the “hot” tag to LSG. C2C missed the Coast to Coast dropkicks and then The Addiction win with a BME/tombstone piledriver combo. Post-match, LSG grabs a mic and talks to Ali about how much they suck. So Ali says they have to win their next match or else they should break up the team. And the crowd went mild.

4) Back from break and we get Eli Isom versus Shane Taylor. Cabana points out that Eli Isom is an “already-in-the-ring-guy” which doesn’t bode well for him. Ian Riccaboni tries to salvage Isom’s reputation by talking about how he has been a fixture on the Future of Honor webcasts. I think I am going with Cabana’s assessment here. And, as expected, Isom gets two chops and then Taylor just annihilates him. We even get a ref stoppage after the KO punch instead of a pin attempt. I still miss Keith Lee though.

5) The main event is coming up. The Young Bucks do a cute little promo to introduce their partner for the six man tag match against Best Friends and Rocky Romero. They say they brought their best friend and Marty Scrull comes out. But the Jacksons apologize for the awkwardness, but it isn’t Marty this time. Then they introduce Kenny Omega who was hiding behind them the whole time. That actually makes it more awkward.

6) Caprice Coleman has another Coleman’s Pulpit and his guest is Brandi Rhodes. They hype up her WAGS show for a bit. Then Coleman shifts over to her wrestling with Women of Honor. He brings up her record of 0-2. She defends herself by saying she is figuring it all out. Coleman agrees that it takes a while. So she asks him how long it took him to win his first match. And Coleman admits that he probably didn’t win his whole first year. Funny little exchange there. We also hear a little about Brandi’s figure skating days. You know what, that was pretty good segment and Brandi Rhodes not only held her own but came across as a smart and engaging personality in her own right. Good on her. I’m still not going to watch WAGS, but that’s okay.

7) Best Friends Vice come out and we still get the wacky interaction between Chuck Taylor and Rocky Romero over Trent Beretta’s affection. Then The Elite comes out and thankfully Omega has dumped his silly schtick with the broom and garbage can. And as much as I like how almost all of these guys work, I have a bad feeling this is going to have way too much comedy for my taste. Especially since I know how well they can work.

8) One positive is that everyone in the ring sells very well even if it is uneven and usually only to make themselves look like world-beaters. Therefore the visuals of everyone’s big moves are pretty cool. The Elite get the win after everyone just destroys everyone else with huge finishers.

9) Okay, here are a few extra thoughts on Final Battle 2017. Matt Taven defeated Will Ospreay as the push to make Taven seem like a credible world title contender. I’m okay with that. I don’t love Taven in that role, and I think they are wasting Ospreay here, but at least it brings someone new into the main event equation. And Taven is not bad by any means.

10) War Machine defeated The Addiction as everyone expected.

11) Marty Scurll and Jay Lethal put on a great match, as I fully expected. The storyline was pretty fun too with Scurll trying to have Lethal become more villainous again. Cool spot towards the end where Scurll brought a chair in the ring and tossed it to Lethal and then pretended to be hit. But Lethal decided to out-Eddie Guerrero Scurll and wrapped the chair around his head and pretended to be the one hit. The finish came when Lethal hit a low blow and followed with a Lethal Injection. I am not sure where they go from here, but the match was definitely worth it.

12) The Motor City Machine Guns defended their tag team titles over the Best Friends. Not too surprising.

13) Silas Young took home the ROH TV title in the four-way match with Kenny King, Shane Taylor, and Punishment Martinez. Probably the right choice. Young’s had a pretty darn good year and it is nice to see that rewarded.

14) The Briscoes defeated Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer. That was the right decision, but it could have been a bigger destruction in my mind.

15) The Young Bucks and Adam Page retained their six-man titles over Flip Gordon, Dragon Lee, and Titan. Is that it for the Bullet Club versus Flip Gordon saga?

16) And surprisingly, Dalton Castle is your new ROH World Heavyweight champion. I thought Cody needed to drop the belt, but I am not sure about Castle as the face of the company. He is really good and definitely a star, but as THE guy, I am not sure. Let’s see if he can prove me wrong.

 

Until next week. Ta-ta.

Human. I think.