This is what I would call the second major show of the weekend, no disrespect intended to the many other great shows that are taking place, I'm looking at you Chikara, but other than NXT and WrestleMania this is the only show to take place in a huge venue, namely the mecca of pro wrestling, Madison Square Garden. There are some matches that look like they should be outstanding so let's hope they deliver because ROH's booking has been hit and miss for a while.
Honor Rumble
Kenny King is at 1, Minoru Suzuki is at 2 and whoever dubbed Suzuki's entrance over just made an enemy out of me. Cheeseburger is in at 3 but I'm still pissed about the lack of Kaze Ni Nare. Beer City Bruiser at 4, SHO at 5, and my boy Shingo Takagi at 6. BUSHI is the 7th entrant, joining his partner. YOH joins his partner next. Shaheem Ali and Rhett Titus are the next 2 out. LSG and Taguchi are the next ones out and only the Bruiser has been eliminated. Will Ferrara and Chase Owens join the fray. Rocky Romero is in and gets everyone to do the forever clothesline on Bushi before eliminating him. Brian Milonas comes in and eliminates both LSG and Ali. Fale is here to fuck some shit up. He eliminates Roppongi 3K before Jonathan Gresham makes his appearance. Suzuki eliminates Shingo. Damn. Tracy Williams is out next. YOSHI-HASHI rounds out the first 20 to a surprisingly big pop. Taguchi is gone. PJ Black is 21st. Chase Owens accidentally punches Suzuki which signs his death certificate. Number 22 is the mighty, legendary Jushin Liger, who eliminates Milonas. TK O'Ryan is out at 23, with Kingdom stablemate Vinny Marseglia in after that. Delirious books himself into the match at 25. Tomohiro Ishii is here and I hope he kills Cheeseburger stone dead. Ishii eliminates Black. Toru Yano is out but decides to trade his place with Colt Cabana who was on commentary. Yano does commentary. Hirooki Goto is out next. YOSHI is gone. Fale gets eliminated by everybody. Bullet Club's music plays, and it's Haku. Jesus Christ, run away. Yano decides he does want to be in the match after all. It's time for number 30 and it's... THE GREAT FUCKING MUTA! I'm losing my damn mind. Some people get eliminated before Ishii eliminates Suzuki, meaning that Cheeseburger got further than Suzuki. The Kingdom eliminate the likes of Ishii and Haku, leaving them in the final four with Liger and Muta. Both of the Kingdom members get dumped meaning it's Liger vs Muta. No, wait a minute, King wasn't eliminated and he reenters to eliminate the legends and win. Kenny King is the biggest bastard in NYC. He does get the deadly red mist for his troubles, as he should the bellend. This was a fun preshow match. Sure, there was a lot of fodder but who doesn't love a couple of absolute legends in there, and to top it off it was the MSG debut for Liger and Muta. ***
ROH TV Title & NEVER Openweight Title - Jeff Cobb vs Will Ospreay
This was a banger of an opener. Both of these guys can go like crazy and that is exactly what they did. Ospreay bumped like a lunatic for Cobb, which was great. Ospreay got an awesome near fall with an Oscutter and Cobb almost decapitated Ospreay with an amazing lariat. Ospreay couldn't hit the Stormbreaker though, and in the end, Cobb hit a super Tour of the Islands, followed by another, to pick up the win. The crowd were great throughout and that helped elevate it even more. ****1/4
Rush vs Dalton Castle
Dalton has so many boys for his entrance. Which is good for him as he just got murdered in 20 seconds. Rush is an absolute beast. They just made a star on their biggest stage. Castle lost his shit and attacked his boys after the match. NR
Juice Robinson has been laid out backstage. Bully Ray is gonna be murdered by Suzuki.
Women Of Honor Title - Mayu Iwatani vs Kelly Klein
I've never really been that much of a fan of Klein so I have some trepidations. I was right. This was bad, and it was because of Klein. It felt way longer than its 10 minute running time, the crowd hated it and it was dull. *1/2
The Beautiful People come out and I don't care very much about that either. This is not the show for this. ROH's women's division is a dumpster fire. It's like they watched some mid-2000s Divas matches on the WWE Network and went 'fuck yes, we want some of that'.
MegaRan is here now. This isn't fucking WrestleMania. I don't need musical interludes. Crowd is pissed. Let's get on with this shit. I'm actually pleased that he got interrupted by Bully Ray. This is where we are at. Bully has become a defacto face despite being a cunt. That is some hilariously misguided booking.
NYC Street Fight - Bully Ray vs Flip Gordon
Obviously, the announced match didn't happen so Flip Gordon answered the challenge. That was interrupted by Silas Young and Shane Taylor. Lifeblood made the save so we get...
NYC Street Fight - Bully Ray, Silas Young & Shane Taylor vs Flip Gordon, Juice Robinson & Mark Haskins
Firstly, this was fine. Secondly, they won the crowd over to a certain extent. But, when all is said and done it wasn't something that needed to be on this show and it didn't move the needle at all. Bully Ray cannot be a draw for a show like this and even if they wanted him on the show, having him get murdered by Minoru Suzuki would have been a far more crowd pleasing way to go about it. It's almost as if Delirious (or possibly Bully Ray) isn't a very good booker. Imagine that. Big respect to Flip though, whose back was fucked up from some stiff kendo shots. **
IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title - Taiji Ishimori vs Bandido vs Dragon Lee
Let's get this fucking show back on track. This was a blistering sprint of a match. I wish that they would have been given some of the time that the previous match and the nonsense after the women's match got but, hey, they took advantage of what they had. Bandido hit a moonsault powerslam on both men at the same time and it was awesome. This got the crowd back too. Dragon Lee winning will lead to an emotional return for Hiromu Takahashi. ****
IWGP Tag Titles & ROH Tag Titles - Guerrillas Of Destiny vs Villain Enterprises vs EVIL & SANADA vs The Briscoes
PCO gets an entrance that couldn't be more PCO if it tried. He was also the reason that this match will be remembered when this weekend is over. He finally hit the apron senton, which looked like it killed Mark Briscoe, and then he took a powerbomb to the floor, which was one of the craziest bumps you are likely to see. That's not to say that it wasn't good though, because it was. It was a wild match that didn't outstay its welcome and allowed everybody to have their moment. G.O.D were always the likely winners though. ***1/2
Following the match, Enzo and Cass appeared to jump the barrier and it looked like Bully Ray beat Enzo's ass. Word is that this is a work, though, which if true is another example of just how much ROH has no idea what their fans want.
RevPro British Heavyweight Title - Zack Sabre Jr vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
This was an excellent technical wrestling match that did suffer a little bit from the crowd being preoccupied with the Enzo & Cass bullshit. They still put together a lovely match though, and it is crazy to think that the British Heavyweight Title has been defended in both the Tokyo Dome and MSG within a few months. Zack is the smoothest wrestler on the planet and Tanahashi is great at selling everything. Hopefully, it's all great from here on in. ****1/4
IWGP IC Title - Tetsuya Naito vs Kota Ibushi
I know that there was basically no chance that this would be anything less than awesome but they managed to go a step above that. When these two get together magic happens. Some of the stuff that they are willing to do to each other is completely insane. Ibushi hit a rana off the apron to the floor and a tasty outside in German suplex. Naito, in return, tried to drop Ibushi on his head as many times as possible. We got the prime version of both men here and it led to a match that was right up there with the other classics they have put on. Everything that happened after Naito spat at Ibushi was masterful, from the incredible near fall following the destino, to homage to Shinsuke Nakamura. In the end, Ibushi managed to pick up his first IC title and he couldn't have done it in a better way. Wonderful. The quality of the New Japan stuff is leagues above that of ROH, and that is most obvious here. *****
ROH Title, Ladder Match - Jay Lethal vs Marty Scurll vs Matt Taven
This was ROH's last chance to shine on this show and it was certainly the best effort they put out. All three men were willing to put their bodies on the line and some of the spots were excellent. This is also the best I have ever seen Matt Taven look. Having said that, it wasn't like it didn't have its problems. It went too long for its own good and fell victim to the trap of having too much time spent setting up contraptions with the ladders, leading to a bit of dead time. The crowd was never really fully invested either, a fact that wasn't helped when it appeared that Lethal accidentally hit a fan with two ladders while throwing them out of the ring. In the end, Taven dumped Lethal through a ladder and became ROH champion for the first time. I have my reservations about putting the belt on Taven as I just don't think that he is marketable and I don't think having him defend the title against Kenny King is going to help ROH at all. ***1/2
IWGP Title - Jay White vs Kazuchika Okada
Back to New Japan and the quality rises again. This is the truest heel/face dynamic of the entire show, with the crowd fully invested in seeing Okada claim his 5th IWGP crown. They got what they wanted too, which led to a great pop. The match itself was excellent, a touch above their match from Wrestle Kingdom I would say. The first half of the match was very methodical, and that stopped it from being a genuine classic, but the second half of the match was fucking brilliant. The way they stepped up the intensity and had the crowd buying everything was a fantastic piece of workmanship by both men. The run of near falls and close escapes that peppered the finishing stretch was outstanding and it built beautifully to the finish. They teased White winning, quite effectively, but in the end, they went with the decision to put the belt on their biggest star on their biggest US show. Good call. ****3/4
Overall Thoughts
I'm not sure that I have ever watched a show that was so simultaneously brilliant and infuriating. The line between them was completely drawn between the two companies too, with everything New Japan did being at least very good and almost all of ROH's booking decisions being bewildering. I have no idea what the hell whoever is in charge of ROH booking is thinking. Bringing in the Beautiful People and Enzo & Cass are outstandingly misjudged ideas and putting your title on a wrestler who has never really managed to gain a following. It just seems like they have an idea of what they want the company to be and that happens to be in stark contrast to what the company built itself on. Their best booking decision on the show was squashing a former champion to create a new star. Don't let this put you off checking out the show though as all of the New Japan matches, and the interpromotional matches, are well worth checking out, with a couple of must watch affairs.
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