At the arena, and attendance looks thinner than ever 10 minutes before show time. Only set up for a little over 500 tops. Next month’s show is Friday, June 29th, so I can’t go! The end of a very short era. Seated on the left side of the camera, right in the middle. The face of Cocomore Drupal, Kevin Steen, is sitting by the merch table hocking $10 signatures and a BRAND NEW 8×10. No mobbing, to say the least.

They better hope folks are stuck in rush hour traffic. Ten minutes in, and the lights are on. Can’t be more than 300 people here. No wrestling yet.

7:25, and a few dozen more have come in, but lots of empty seats still. General Admission areas are a bit over half full. The lesson here is that they shouldn’t run these tapings on Friday nights. They also don’t have the sections labelled clearly, so late comers will be very confused, especially since they inexplicably change the sections up every month.

Finally starting at 7:35. Bobby Cruise announces four autographed event posters at the merch stand. Introduces Kevin Kelly & Nigel McGuinness. They announce 6/29 tapings date – history-making night because LANCE STORM will be here. Wants to settle things once and for all – Final Conflict with Mike Bennett. Damn.

Dark Match (?): The Bravados vs. Fusion DS: Nice reaction for Bravados. “Justin Bieber” chant to start. Playing babyface. Harlem played babyface in peril, hot tag to Lancelot who cleaned house and won with a pin after a move I missed in 5. Very good stuff. Enjoyed Fusion DS.

- Maybe 400 people here. Probably closer to 350. TV side has filled out, though only the floor.

First set of tapings start.

Kelly & Nigel talk about the new ROH World Champ. Serious faces, cartoonishly so. Talked about challengers, then cut to comments from them. Then came out to do it over and retape. “We Want Steen” chant.

1. Adam Cole vs. Mike Mondo: HUGE REACTION for Mondo. Good reaction for Cole. Cole’s in big boy tights. Dueling chants to start, Mondo stronger. Good back and forth, dive to the outside by Cole. Mondo takes control by sticking Cole’s arm in a turnbuckle, sticking Cole’s legs in the apron, and grinding his heel into Cole’s face. WHAT A HEEL! Good restholds from Mondo for a bit, and Cole makes his comeback. Good nearfall after a crossbody from Cole. Cole wins with a backslide in 7 and offers a handshake but gets a snot rocket. Fun match.

2. Tommaso Ciampa (w/ Prince Nana, RD Evans & Princess Mia) vs. Nick Westgate: Face reaction for Ciampa’s Beard, who is pissed and asking for Jay Lethal. Ciampa wins by ref stoppage after some knees to the temple in 3. Good storyline stuff. Westgate is from MA and got in a nice dropkick before dying. There’s a line in Ciampa’s theme song that says he likes “black, white and A-rab money”.

3. Main Event: The All Night Express (Kenny King & Rhett Titus) vs. Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander (The New Combination): Good reaction for Coleman & Alexander, big pop for ANX. Some jawing before the bell. Nice exchange between King and Alexander to start, ending in double Trouble in Paradises and a Choreographed Indie Sequence of Mutual Respect and Parity. Titus and Caprice tag in, and Caprice shines with a nice moonsault to ringside. Alexander with a corkscrew to the outside, and Caprice with a nice 619 around the ringpost. ANX work over Caprice for a while. Caprice comes back for the hot tag after a nice combination dropkick and Tornado DDT to both King & Titus. Cedric in like a house of FIRE and all four guys are in the ring. King catches Cedric in a nasty spinebuster, and a bunch of good two on two stuff follows. Titus fucked up taking a hurricanrana off the top, but Kenny distracts us with awesome. Finish is a combo powerbomb/top rope blockbuster from ANX to Cedric for the pin at 10. Really good stuff. Kenny King is a fountain of talent. Handshake after the match.

- Kevin Steen out with Jimmy Jacobs & Steve Corino. Steen and I have a little conversation on his way to the ring and he pulls the title away from me. Got me, dammit! Corino on the mic. Says that this wasn’t a ruse and tells Kelly to step aside so he can interview Steen. Big pop for his intro. Asks how it feels that Cornette has to call him champ without naming Cornette. Steen says he kept his promise from six months ago. Corino asks why Steen will be different. Says he’ll represent the company at health and fitness events, go to sponsor meetings. Says he’s going to the SBG affiliate dinner. Cornette comes out. Says Steen won’t be champ by the affiliate meeting. Fires Corino. Corino yells at Cornette for making him fight Steen and says his contract is iron clad. “Shut up Jim.” Cornette calls Steen a cancer, bad for PR, says he’s talked to everyone backstage about taking the title. Starts to announce match, interrupted by Davey Richards and Kyle O’Reilly. Richards says, “Shut up Jim. Kiss my ass.” Says he fights for only himself. Says the old Davey is back and won’t make excuses. Says Steen was better that night. Cornette says that seems to be the problem. Davey said he wants the title shot because he and Steen are the best two wrestlers in the world, and he’ll kick Cornette’s ass to get it. Cornette’s mic starts to cut out, Steen offers his, Cornette doesn’t want it because it smells like Steen’s breath. Steen says he’s leaving, then tells Davey he should be pissed at Cornette for not giving him the title shot. Says Cornette is a tennis player without balls. Cornette says Davey can have the shot, but just like Steen at Border Wars, it’ll be his last chance. Davey says something boring to Steen to close it out.

Second tapings start.

4. Michael Elgin (w/Truth Martini) vs. Matt Taven. Star reaction for Elgin, nice reaction for Taven. Handshake to start. INSANE superplex to Taven who was on the apron as Elgin stood on the second turnbuckle. Elgin killed Taven for a while until Taven made a comeback. Took at least five kicks to get Elgin to fall. Elgin wins after an awesome turnbuckle powerbomb after a roll-thru reversal and a spinning sitout powerbomb in 7. Good squash. Elgin knocked Taven’s earring into the front row.

- Kelly in the ring introduces your NEW Ring of Cocomore Drupal Tag Team Champions, WGTT. Good heat. Kelly asks if they’re proud of their actions, and Haas toots his own horn. Said he had to wipe the chicken grease off Mark Briscoe to put on the sleeper. Good heat here. Shelton talks and complains about fineth and thuthpenthions. Says from now on, the handshake is a waiver so ROH can’t fine or suspend them. Brings up ANX. Says they haven’t earned a title shot. ANX out in street clothes and no shirts. King calls them old, says they’ll turn their old asses into old news. Rhett talks for some reason and says nothing new. Shelton says they’re just another tag team who want to be the World’s Greatest Tag Team. Brawl! Charlie bails, ANX double team Shelton, and Kenny counts three for Titus’ pin. Good, fresh dynamic here.

- Corino at announce booth. How does this crowd have the BALLS to chant fat jokes at Todd Sinclair?

5. Main Event: Eddie Edwards vs. Davey Richards. Cheers for Eddie, scattered boos for Davey. Hope there’s a time limit! “Let’s Go Eddie!” chants to start. Handshake. Aggressive lock-up to start, Davey takes some time to break. Mat work, and stupid stalemate where they hold each other’s leg. Lots of good back and forth, but Eddie takes control with a tope. Eddie is way over. Davey reverses a backpack chin breaker into an arm bar. Guys next to me are shouting boring. Wait til we get to the 45 min mark! Davey takes over driving Eddie’s arm into the apron and points at Corino. Chops around the ringside area. Davey spits on a fans Kevin Steen t-shirt! Plays full heel, and crowd continues to rally around Eddie. The usual stuff follows, though Davey is clearly the heel. Really good match which Eddie wins with a roll up in 17 after interference from Jimmy Jacobs, though Jimmy took a nasty bump on the floor first. Handshake and hug afterwards. If all their matches were this long, they’d be a lot better.

6. Internet Exclusive: Mike Bennett (w/Maria and #WhyNotBob) vs. Adam Cole vs. Jay Lethal vs. Roderick Strong (w/Truth Martini) for a World Title shot in Pittsburgh on 6/30. Four corners, tag rules. Appropriate reactions for all, Lethal most popular and some fans for Roddy. This is a stacked episode. Faces shake each other’s hands and heels shake theirs. Cole bests Bennett to start and Roddy tags in to take on Cole. Lethal blind tags Cole and hits a combo DDT-downward spiral. Bennett eventually takes over on Lethal and the heels double team Jay for a bit. Too much stuff to write, Maria distracts ref as Bob attacks Cole, but Roddy takes advantage with some crazy move where Cole did a 360 flip and landed on Roddy’s knees. Roddy wins the title shot via pinfall in 6. Weirdly short, though as an internet-only match, it makes sense.

INTERMISSION. It may have been shorter than usual, because a ton of people are still mKing heir way back after the restart music.

Third tapings start.

7. Mike Bennett (w/Maria & #WhyNotBob) vs. Adam Cage (?). Jobber was in control until Maria’s cleavage interfered. Bennett takes over with a Russian leg sweep to the barricade. “You Can’t Wrestle” chant to Bennett. Way too much offense for the jobber. Nice spear by Bennett. Bennett finally wins with a TKO in 5.

- Afterwards, Bennett and Bob double team the jobber until Eddie Edwards makes the save. Bennett challenges Eddie on behalf of Bob for next week’s TV, and Eddie accepts.

- Corino starts talking behind the curtain and leads Steen and Jacobs out. Corino complains about ROH not taking care of their champion, which he should know about. Steen cuts a boring promo, pushes next week’s tag match with him and Jimmy vs. Davey and O’Reilly. Asks about the package piledriver being legal or not. Wants anything goes, no DQ. OF COURSE HE DOES BECAUSE HE CAN’T WRESTLE A GOOD STRAIGHT MATCH ANYMORE. You guys ready to watch Kevin Steen lick some blood?!?!

8. Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. Two Jobbers. Jay works babyface in peril, hot tag to Mark who cleans house. Chokeslam/froggy bow for a nearfall which is broken up his partner. Finish is a Doomsday Device in 5.

- After the match, Truth Martini gets on the mic from the announce booth. Challenges Dem Boys for NYC against his Guardians of Truth and asks if they’re men or the chickens they farm. They accept.

9. Main Event for the World Television Title: Roderick Strong (w/ Truth Martini) vs. Tommaso Ciampa (w/ The Embassy Ltd.). 15-minute time limit. Ciampa is screaming that he wants his title. All the managers shake hands in the ring to make peace before the match. Funny. Ciampa in control early with good offense. Tells Truth he likes the way he dresses which shakes Truth up a bit. Roddy takes over when Ciampa misses a bare knee trembler. Ciampa comes back with an Air Raid Crash for two. Heat is a little lacking for this heel heel match, though it’s good and crowd likes it. Evans distracts ref and Roddy punches Nana in the ring. Ciampa hits Project Ciampa, but Nana jumps in and kicks strong to get Ciampa DQed in 10, splitting his pants in the process. Post-match Ciampa intimidates Nana and tosses his head gear across the ring, but he stops there and goes to the back. Would like to see more of these two with one as a babyface.

Final tapings

10. Eddie Edwards vs. Brutal Bob (w/ Mike Bennett & Maria). Bob out in an awesome robe. Bob is in short trunks! Starts off in control but Eddie hits him with a boot to the face and chops the blood out of his chest. In the ring, Bob takes over with awesome old school offense. Hard hitting stuff. Eddie kills Bob with some more chops and a hurricanrana. Bob kind of botches catching Eddie with a ringside moonsault. Eddie wins after botched interference from Bennett and a backslide in 5. Double team on Eddie until… GUN SHOTS…

- HOMICIDE out for the save! Cleans house and chases Bennett’s crew to the back. After the match, Homicide offers a handshake to Eddie who is reluctant at first but shakes it. But SWERVE… Cop Killa! I fucking hate that move. And we have a Best in the World match.

11. Jay Lethal vs. Chris Silvio. Crowd is tired. Nana and Evans out to watch Jay early in the match. Kizarny takes over after running Lethal face first into the ringpost on the outside. Truth out too. Silvio is in control for too long, but as Lethal takes over, Ciampa comes out and confronts the Embassy for scouting Jay. Ciampa gets into a tussle with Truth, so Roddy comes out for the save and fights Ciampa. Meanwhile, Jay pins Silvio with Lethal Injection in 8. Big clusterfuck ensues as Ciampa, who is wearing a Lethal shirt, confronts Lethal and Roddy joins the fight. Evans tries to calm Ciampa down and gets chewed out as everyone heads backstage.

12. Main Event: Davey Richards & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Kevin Steen & Jimmy Jacobs. Corino on commentary. Steen tells me he hates me. Brawling starts in the middle of ring intros, leading to ringside scuffling. Davey & Steen pair off and eventually get in the ring, but Jacobs pulls Davey out and O’Reilly goes after Steen. They roll to the outside and Jacobs and Davey fight. Lots of stuff on the outside. Back in the ring, Davey gets Steen in an ankle lock, but Jacobs saves him. KO intervenes but eats a Steen powerbomb to apron. Awful. Lots of bodies into barriers. Jacobs and KO work in the ring as Steen lumbers to his corner. Steen tags in and bites KO’s ear. I ask him for wrestling and he asks me what that is. Double team with Jacobs until Davey comes in and cleans up. Gets Steen in the ankle lock. More tag stuff. Steen hits a rope flip to the outside and comes up a little short and holding his right eye. More clusterfuck including some botched table spots. Table breaks halfway under Steen’s body weight. Then breaks all the way with a Jacobs DDT to KO. Ref calls for no contest in 12. Brawly brawl until the locker room breaks them up. Davey in the ring says everyone can kiss his ass. The next title win is for him and him alone.

And we’re done!

- Squashapalooza, maniacs. We open with WGTT vs the NOTABLE team of D-Line – Black Ice and Body Snatcher. This is too short to be objectionable in any way, and Kevin Kelly says “Reclaim Foundation” and “underprivileged youth” so many times in the course of four minutes that I almost feel guilty about mentioning that Body Snatcher is easily the worst wrestler to appear on this show to date. Nice offense for WGTT, especially Shelton. Body Snatcher submits to the Haas of Pain. That was fine, now let’s never see them again.

- The Colony vs Ophidian and “The” Ice Creams in lucha-style Chikara trios action. This is short and fun. Fire Ant and the heels all look good here, the other two ants less so. Some cool spots and some funny spots and some spots where you can see that some of these guys just aren’t all that athletic. Amusing change of pace and doesn’t wear out its welcome.

- Jay Lethal vs Rickey Reyes. So far this show has just been continuous matches, by the way – no backstage, no videos, just squash after squash. The virtues of Ricky Reyes are that he is a decent wrestler and looks and carries himself like a fighter. Other than that, he’s doesn’t have much. Turns himself jobber heel by kicking Lethal in the stomach during the Handshake of Honor. They do some stuff to each other and then Lethal beats him with the Lethal Injection in about 3 minutes.  Fine.

- Inside Ring of Honor! We hype Bennett/Edwards rematch from last week as well as Young Bucks vs ANX.

- Rhino and Martini promo hypes the main event. Richards is entering a war he can’t win. I have no problem at all with ROH Rhino.

- Your main event is a very good Proving Ground match between Richards and Rhino that goes a little less than 15 minutes. Nice chemistry between these two. Rhino works an energetic pace and a pretty athletic style. I just googled it and apparently he is still only 36 and has worked a light TNA or indies schedule for the past 7 years, so I guess it’s not too shocking that he can still go. Richards intermittently making TERRIBLE faces and goofy fake-ass poses between moves. He really shouldn’t even try to “act”. Cool finish as Davey counters the Gore into a sunset flip for the win. Post-match, Rhino, Truth, and Strong beat down Davey, but Lethal makes the save. Seems to set up Lethal/Richards vs Strong/Rhino for a future TV match.

CONS

- “THE” Ice Creams? Come on.

- Ultramantis Black sits in on commentary for the Chikara match. OK, I’ll say it. This guy is a dork. You don’t really want him on TV representing your company. He’s literally socially awkward. Not in a charming geek way. More like, if I was at a party and this guy was talking to me, I would excuse myself and escape from the conversation. Wrestlers on TV should not be less cool than, say, me.

- Veda Scott interviews Davey Richards backstage and HOLY SHIT his fake intensity is so bad here. Stop tucking your chin and squinting, you little douche. This almost makes me fucking glad Steen beat him. If Rhino runs at him, he will knock him back “into the jungle”. Rhinos do not live in jungles.

- Rhett Titus is the worst. The WORST promo. So punchable. Has an awful shirt as well.

- If you missed Cocomore Drupal, and who didn’t, you can watch some of the replay on ROH.com. You know, until the stream craps out on you.

NEXT WEEK!
Young Bucks vs All Night Express in an elimination tag, plus Eddie Edwards vs Mike Bennett.

Mortal enemies Ben and Sajid put their differences aside for one night only to review Extreme Rules 2012!

Featuring TENSION, Ask Ben questions from me (Rick Finch) and Burnside, Sajid’s “impressions”, a classic Cena clip, fantasy booking of personified emotions, match recaps of reasonable length, star ratings and much more!

Classic Clip Link

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- The ROH website is now i-compatible. This means that I streamed this episode to my TV. Convenient and bleary.

- Opening recap of the good Briscoes vs New Combination match from last week. I didn’t realize that match was particularly important. Ah, okay, it’s to do with Briscoes vs WGTT on 5/12. Fair enough.

- We are crammed with matches this week. Let us start right away with Tomasso Ciampa vs Matt Taven. We are informed that Ciampa’s (wonderful) entrance music is called “McDuck Money”. It’s a rather infectious, light-hearted club song that has nothing to do with his psychotic character. Amusing moment as Matt Taven skins the cat as part of his entrance routine, but as soon as he gets over the rope Ciampa just grabs him and immediately gives him a big full nelson suplex. That’ll teach him. Kevin Kelly tries to get over Taven’s catchphrase, which apparently is “Did MATT just happen!?!” Jay Lethal out to watch. Air Raid Crash on the floor. Ciampa takes time to stare down Lethal. Back in, Taven makes a firey babyface comeback. I really like this aspect of Ciampa’s streak because crowd buys that Taven might win here and make a little name for himself. Taven hits a frogsplash and crowd buys the nearfall. Ciampa cuts him off with the Knee Strike of Devastation. Tree of Woe, and knee strikes finish it. Good match.

- Veda is interviewing TJ Perkins. Young Bucks show up to call him a nerd and a dork. Perkins: “You’re the ones with the ponytails.” Matt Jackson: “Yeah? Well, check out that stupid little blonde streak in your hair.” Perkins has no comeback for this. Young Bucks unload on him with a cavalcade of dork, nerd, dork, dork, nerd. Perkins shoves Matt and stalks away. Matt: “This effin’ guy, you know?” Fabulous.

- Mike Mondo vs TJ Perkins in yet another good TV match. Highlight is Mondo forcefully holding Perkins’ left eyelid open, causing Kevin Kelly to slowly freak out. Kelly: “He’s…he’s exposing the eyeball! Is…IS MIKE MONDO PLANNING TO BITE TJ PERKINS’ EYE OUT? I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M SAYING THESE WORDS!!!” Perkins fights out with strikes. Bucks to ringside. Perkins tosses Mondo through the ropes, Bucks catch him and offer him comforting hugs and pats. Naturally, Perkins hits a tope on all of them. COMEDY STOOGING. Bucks distract Perkins for probably the biggest win of Mondo’s ROH career to date. All three beat down Perkins post-match, ANX out for the save, and there you have your six-man tag for 5/12.

- Inside ROH! WGTT, House of Truth (including Rhino), and Mike Bennett all cut okay heel promos. Moving on.

- Veda interviews Sinister Rent Boy Kyle O’Reilly. He threatens to EXPOSE Kevin Steen in that ring. Okay.

- Your main event is Kevin Steen vs Kyle O’Reilly in what, in my opinion, was Steen’s most watchable match since returning to ROH. O’Reilly must not have learned his selling from Davey Richards, because he sells much better than Richards. Steen works over the leg early, ramming it into the post. O’Reilly can’t put weight on it. Powerbomb, kickout. Steen charges O’Reilly in the corner, O’Reilly dodges for the comeback and Steen crashes to the floor, ends up in a chair near Sajid. O’Reilly delights Sajid by hitting a missle dropkick from the top rope to Steen on the floor. Back in, another missle dropkick. Steen cuts him off with an elevated DDT. Cannonball gets two. O’Reilly with the armbar out of nowhere brings Steen down. Steen in the ropes. Powerbombs O’Reilly, knocking O’Reilly’s mouth guard out. Steen picks it up and of course puts it in his own mouth. Crowd: “Ewwwwwww!” Ankle lock but it’s on the uninjured leg. O’Reilly counters with a enzuigiri, but hits it with the bad leg and hurts himself as well. Jimmy Jacobs up on the apron. O’Reilly finds the mouth guard and throws it at him, but Steen has recovered and finishes him with the F-Cinq. Davey Richards saves O’Reilly from a post-match beatdown, swarms of security in to break it up.

CONS

Closing moment of the go-home show: Davey Richards cutting lame unconvincing promo on Steen.

Still, a very good episode.

NEXT WEEK!
Your main event is Davey Richards vs Rhino in a Proving Ground Match, plus Chikara action with The Colony vs Ophidian and Los Ice Creams and Jay Lethal vs “The Cuban Crippler” Ricky Reyes.

- Briscoes vs New Combination in a Proving Ground match is a spirited enough affair. Coleman and Alexander continue to steadily improve. Jay Briscoe works this match like a guy who should be making more money in wrestling than he is. Mark Briscoe works it like a guy who has held these same tag belts 7 times, is getting slightly bored with the whole thing, and is amusing himself with making up goofy new comedy spots. WGTT in for the fuck finish; Benjamin low-blows Jay allowing New Combination to double-team Mark with a top rope hurricanrana followed by a frog splash for the finish and a future title shot.

- Veda interviews Nana, RD Evans, and Truth Martini backstage, where they reiterate that The Embassy has sold Rhino to the House of Truth. Rhino arrives and cuts a fine heel promo on Eddie Edwards for Toronto.

- Rhino quickly and brutally squashes notable indie wrestler Vinny Marseglia, who looks like a poor man’s Jeff Hardy in the douchiest possible way. This is pretty great. Truth Martini tells Vinny that he hopes he kissed his mommy and daddy goodbye, because they’re never going to see him again. Regarding whether Rhino adheres to the Code of Honor, Kevin Kelly declares that “The only way Rhino will shake your hand is if there’s a hundred dollar bill in it! He is a MERCENARY!” Rhino Lesnar. Martini with the Paul Heyman screaming “Gore! Gore! Gore!” call, which was tepidly over when Heyman did it and not over at all at any time since. But the Gore at least looked great. Rhino destroys this young man and this gets over HUGE. I actually think Rhino is a potential top act in 2012 Ring of Honor.

- Inside ROH! For Border Wars, we hear about Richards vs Steen. We hear about Briscoes vs WGTT and watch three consecutive replays of Haas and Benjamin attacking Jay Briscoe’s balls. Promos from Lethal and Ciampa, workmanlike. Promo from everybody’s cousin from New England, Eddie Edwards. Even more workmanlike. I’ll forgive the fact that we get the same Lance Storm segment from last week. I mean, it was good, but a straight repeat.

- In your TV main event, Roderick Strong defends his TV title vs Adam Cole. Adam Cole just isn’t that over here. It sounds funny, but I honestly think his gear is a serious problem. Those tiny yellow tights with the beach scene on the back say “opening match heel”. Kind of a disappointing match, but not bad or anything. Meanders aimlessly back and forth until Elgin comes down and heel interference leads to Strong finishing Cole with a pretty awesome looking verticle suplex into a backbreaker. Elgin looks less than impressed with Strong so the slow turn continues there. This was a match.

CON

- Cornette/Steen/Richards in-ring promo duel squeaks into the “Pro” column despite Steen’s efforts to sandbag it and bury the whole angle and turn the crowd on Davey and Cornette. Davey calls Steen fatty fat-fat a bunch of times. Steen calls Davey a quitter and SHOOTS~! about what Davey said in the CAR~! at the AIRPORT~! in MONTREAL~! and you know what, this is going in “Con” actually. By the way, the Steen/Generico Loser Leaves ROH match was fake. Surprise, Kevin Steen! You signed something that says you only get one title shot for the rest of your life! This is TNA-esque bullshit. Cornette can yell about Vince Russo all he wants, but honestly Russo wouldn’t book this any worse. They’re fucking this angle up.

- Kevin Kelly tells me to go to ROH.com and find out all about how I can order Border Wars on iPPV. YOU’RE FUCKING LYING

NEXT WEEK
Your main event is Kevin Steen vs Kyle O’Reilly, plus TJ Perkins vs Mike Mondo and Tomasso Ciampa vs Matt Taven.

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4/21/12 Episode

PROS

- We start off with Briscoes defending the tag belts against WGTT from 3/31. This is picked up just after the bell. Good match; feels a bit better here than on the iPPV. Superior to their Final Battle match. Lots of profanity gets muted here, and lots of middle fingers get blurred. The Briscoes are quite athletic workers, actually, especially Mark. Haas is a heat magnet as usual. Crowd merciless with WGTT here – lots of “same old shit” chants. Well, Leap of Faith is a horrible move. Finish is WGTT trying to hit it on Jay, but Mark hits a springboard dropkick on Shelton and Jay pins Haas with a victory roll. WGTT immediately beat up the Briscoes post match, so this feud must continue. This got like 15 minutes. Meltzer gave it **3/4, which feels about right.

- Serviceable heel promo from Benjamin and (mostly) Haas to hype their rematch a Border Wars. I would be fine with 5-7 more years of this heel Charlie Haas.

- We get approximately the second half of TJ Perkins vs Fire Ant. Sheer time-filler, but not bad or anything. Slightly disappointing match. This was an occasion where these guys were given 8 minutes on a PPV and what they really should have done is gone out and had a crazy balls-to-the-wall spotfest a la Future Shock vs Young Bucks. Instead we get 8 minutes of decent low-grade gringo lucha. Meltz gave it **1/4. Sure.

- Inside Ring of Honor! Richards and Steen cut promos on each other for Toronto. Richards calls Steen a fat kid in basketball shorts pretending to be a wrestler. Hard to argue with that. Steen cuts an actual heel promo.

- Inside Ring of Honor! Really, really good Lance Storm promo/video package about his quest for vegeance on that PUNK Mike Bennett and his TWO-BIT GIRLFRIEND. In retirement Lance Storm has found the mic skills that eluded him for his entire career on national TV.

CONS

- I’m so confused. They book Richards vs Steen in Toronto, where Steen is guaranteed to be a face, and NOW they decide to start having him play heel?

- Lethal vs Strong from 3/31. It’s a bit unfair to put this match down here because it wasn’t horrible or anything. But God was it listless and dull. Much like the previous TV match between these two, they just never found second gear. And every time they’d hit a few hot moves and the crowd would rouse itself from its stupor, they’d immediately put it in the deep freeze again. Just the bland wrestling the bland here. For some reason ROH wrestlers don’t seem to understand the psychological concept of the TV title – it’s a 15-minute time limit, so the matches are meant to be fast-paced and dramatic because the challenger only has 15 minutes to finish the champ. Instead it’s always like “let me see how many waistlocks I can do in this match.” Flat start to Strong’s reign, but I nevertheless I think he could be a really good champ. Not dying to see a rematch of this, though.

NEXT WEEK!

We return to the safe, nurturing confines of the Du Burns Arena with your main event of Roderick Strong defending the TV title vs Adam Cole, Plus Briscoes vs New Combination in a Proving Ground match and Rhino makes his TV debut.

Sajid and Brian H’s review of WrestleMania 28 concludes with the Hall of Fame, impressions, Team Teddy vs Team Johnny, live music, Rock vs Cena and much more!

Instant Classic Clip #2

Enjoy!