ROH
Final Battle 2014
New
York City, New York 12/7/14
This
is the first ROH show held in Terminal 5. Due to the rent being raised for the
Hammerstein Ballroom, ROH is no longer running that venue, and needed to find a
new home in New York City. They found one in this very unique concert venue.
Pre-Show
1.)
Brutal Burgers (“Brutal” Bob Evans & Cheeseburger) vs. BJ Whitmer &
Mikey Webb: **
The
DVD includes this pre-show match. I think the deal here was that Mikey Webb is
getting a “tryout” with The Decade. They had decent pre-show match here. Brutal
Burgers would pick up the win, and I believe Whitmer beat up Mikey Webb
afterwords (It’s kind of similar to what The House of Truth did with Michael
Elgin in the first year or so of his ROH career).
PPV
1.)
Four-Corner Survival – Caprice Coleman vs. Hanson vs. Jimmy Jacobs (with BJ
Whitmer) vs. Mark Briscoe: ***
The
PPV properly kicks off with a Four-Corner Survival match that pretty much
consists of guys who had nothing else going on. I thought this was a very solid
opener. All four guys got a chance to shine in here, and there was some pretty
good action. Hanson would score the win here.
After
the match, Jimmy Jacobs remains in the ring with BJ Whitmer. Jacobs talked
about every young wrestler getting the chance to grab that “brass ring”, and
then Whitmer takes the mic and says that Adam Page is ready to earn his spot in
The Decade tonight. Page then comes out with some new Decade-themed gear.
2.)
Adam Page (with The Decade) vs. Roderick Strong: ***1/2
So
this match was built around dissention within The Decade, and at this point,
Strong has pretty much broken away from the group entirely, turning babyface in
the process. Here, he’s taking on Adam Page, The Decade’s “young boy”. This was
a really good match, with a lot of good back & forth action. You can always
count on (at the very least) a good match from Roderick Strong, but this was a
big moment for Adam Page as well. This was quite possibly the biggest match in
ROH up to this point, and I think he stepped up in a big way. In the end,
Strong was able to overcome Adam Page (as well as outside interference from BJ
Whitmer) to win the match, making Page pass out in the Stronghold. Could Page
have gotten the win here? Yes, but I think he still looked good in defeat.
After
the match, BJ Whitmer gets into it with Steve Corino. The two need to be
separated.
3.)
“Sicilian Psychopath” Tommaso Ciampa vs. “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin: **3/4
While
this sounds like a great matchup on paper, it had one of the strangest builds
in recent memory. Ciampa was in the middle of becoming more psychotic, and was
being monitored more closely after attacking ring announcer Bobby Cruise following
a loss in a World Title match to Michael Elgin. Speaking of Elgin, the last
part of 2014 for him has been nothing short of bizarre. After losing the ROH
World Title to Jay Briscoe at All-Star
Extravaganza VI, he was stuck in Canada for nearly a month due to visa
issues. There was an incident where he was supposed to return on a show in
Kalamazoo, but “quit” instead. He then showed up at a TV Taping and tried to
lie down in a match against Caprice Coleman. All very strange…
With
that out of the way, let’s talk about the match. There were a number of issues
that prevented this from being a potentially great match. Firstly, the crowd
didn’t know how to react in this match at all, and that’s because of how the
characters had been handled on TV. You didn’t know who was supposed to be a
face or a heel. Then there was an unnecessary ref bump, which led to a moment
between Ciampa & Nigel McGuinness that I don’t think got the reaction they
were looking for. Don’t get me wrong, the action was good, but all of the
questionable storyline stuff totally overshadowed the match itself. It should
be said also that, as far as their matches in Ring of Honor go, each match has
gotten progressively worse. Elgin would end up winning this one.
4.)
Six-Man Tag – Cedric Alexander & The Addiction vs. ACH & The Young
Bucks: ****1/4
There
aren’t really any storylines surrounding this match. It’s just two of the best
tag teams in ROH teaming up with two of the biggest rising stars in the
promotion. If you were looking for a match that was balls-to-the-walls and
filled with athletic stuff, then this was the match for you. All six of these
guys are so good, and so much to watch. There really isn’t anything else to say
other than this match was super entertaining. Eventually, The Young Bucks &
ACH would pick up the win with an amazing finishing sequence!
5.)
Moose (with Stokely Hathaway & Prince Nana) vs. RD Evans: *
The
storyline here is that, back at Glory By
Honor XIII, Moose turned on RD Evans, screwing him out of the ROH World TV
Title, and ending his undefeated streak. Simply put, this was a bad match. The
crowd didn’t care about the story, and there were a few botches. Veda Scott,
who was on the fence about what had happened to Evans, turned heel on Evans, to
the surprise of nobody, and helped Moose get the win. This was easily one of
the worst matches of the year from Ring of Honor. The fact that it was on PPV
amplified that fact even more.
6.)
ROH World TV Title – Jay Lethal (with Truth Martini & J. Diesel) vs. Matt
Sydal: ***1/2
Over
the last month or two, The House of Truth have been trying to court Sydal into
joining them, but Sydal refused, which helped set up this match. This was a
pretty good match. Lethal continues to excel in his role as ROH World TV
Champion, and Sydal looks much better compared to when he first returned to the
independent scene a few months earlier. There was some interference towards the
end of the match from The House of Truth, but this was still a very good match.
Lethal ended up countering a Shooting Star Press with a cutter (similar to what
Randy Orton did several years earlier on RAW), before hitting the Lethal
Injection to retain his title.
7.)
ROH World Tag Team Titles – reDRagon vs. The Time Splitters: ****1/4
These
two teams come into this match with a split record. Alex Shelley & KUSHIDA
successfully retained their IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles in reDRagon’s
New Japan debut at the G1 Climax 24 Finals. Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly then
won the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles from The Time Splitters a few
months later at Power Struggle 2014,
becoming dual champions in the process. This is the rubber match, and it was
pretty great! These are two of the best tag teams in the entire world, so it’s
no surprise that they had an awesome match here. There was some great back
& forth action throughout this one. Eventually, reDRagon would pull out the
victory to retain the ROH World Tag Team Titles in one of the best matches of
the night.
8.)
ROH World Title – Fight Without Honor – Jay Briscoe vs. Adam Cole: ****1/4
We
now come to the Main Event, which is the conclusion to one of the best feuds in
Ring of Honor history since the SBG era began. Initially, this feud seemingly
concluded with their Ladder War at Supercard of Honor VIII in New Orleans, but with Jay Brisoce winning the ROH World
Title for a 2nd time, and Adam Cole winning the 2014 edition of
Survival of the Fittest, their paths were bound to cross again. We expected
this to be an all-out war, and that’s exactly what we got here. These two went
out there and just tried to destroy each other. Chairs, Tables, Ladders,
Thumbtacks, and even a staple gun, were all used in this match. I know a lot of
people don’t like these types of violent matches, but when get a feud that’s as
personal as this one, then I think it’s totally appropriate, and these two did
an amazing job here. You really got the sense that these two absolutely despised
each other. Jay Briscoe finally put an end to Adam Cole with a Jay Driller on
top of the ROH World Title to score the victory. A symbolic end to this great
rivalry.
Overall: 8.25/10
This
was ROH 2nd PPV effort, and I think it was slightly better than
their 1st PPV, Best In The
World 2014. I thought the three best matches on this show (the Six-Man Tag,
the ROH World Tag Team Title Match, and the Fight Without Honor for the ROH
World Title) were better than the best matches on Best In The World 2014. Those three matches were all great in their
own way, and are definitely worth checking out. While there were some matches
that were weird (Ciampa vs. Elgin) or outright bad (Moose vs. RD Evans), the
rest of the undercard (the opening Four-Way, Strong vs. Page, and the ROH World
TV Title Match) were all very solid. The positives on this show outweighed the
negatives, and I think ROH ended 2014 on a good note.
No comments:
Post a Comment