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Ring of Honor - 2023


Matt D

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MODS, feel free to rename this, move it, delete it, make it into the start of the March discussion thread if we're going monthly, whatever, but I think we should push this off from the standard AEW monthly discussion. Here's the list of matches (no spoilers)

Night 1 taping:

Spoiler

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Night 2 taping:

Spoiler

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Here's where the PPV seems to be headed:

Spoiler
  • Claudio v Kingston
  • Athena vs Yuka
  • Samoa Joe vs Mark Briscoe
  • Yuta vs Shibata(?)
  • Embassy vs Blake Christian/Gran Metalik/AR Fox

It's all pretty promising overall. A lot of ten minute competitive matches that feel fresh. High end Dark/Elevation stuff. We won't have to worry about commercial breaks or fitting everything in before the start of Dynamite that sometimes crimps Elevation's style. Obviously they were long tapings and people were supposed to be pretty worn out by the end of the second one.

 

Edited by Matt D
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1 hour ago, Dog said:

Is there an easy way to watch Honor Club on my TV? Just using the laptop doesn't sound very appealing.

This is my biggest concern about getting Honor Club, too! I haven't been able to find a convenient way. Chromecast should be a possibility, but I haven't tried using that yet, either.

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SLIM J! MARK BRISCOE!  Fuck YEAH!  REDNECK KUNG FU!  Slim J wit h the lowblow!  Slim J bumps like a freak for Mark!  Slim J throws a GREAT worked punch!  Mark is bleeding!  Slim J is awesome.  Ari Daivari CHEATS!  Slim J works a chinlock and the crowd responds!  Mark transitions with RNKF!  Neckbreaker FOR TWO!  POWERBOMB FOR TWO!  BIG BOOT to a J Driller!  That was fucking GREAT.  Slim J is fucking AWESOME.  Tony Deppen is on the MIC!  He is going to get murdered by Samoa Joe next week!  It's the Kingdom versus the Infantry!  Carlie Bravo!  I haven't seen him since that shortlived Atlanta excursion by United Wrestling Network.  Shawn Dean books Dark!  Matt Taven is so underrated.  Mike Bennett is fucking great.  Maria Kannellis has beautiful Greek genes.  Carlie assumes the roll of face in peril immediately.  The Infantry have goofy double teams so they are immediately my new favorite.  GREAT dropkick by Taven.  PURPLE THUNDER BOMB!  Bennett with a nice Brainbuster FOR TWO.  DECAPITATION by the Kingdom!  Dean makes the save!  HOT TAG to Dean!  More fun double teams by the Infantry!  PROTON PACK by the Kingdom!  That was fun.  The infantry are the New Texas Hangmen!  YAAAY!  INFANTRY! INFANTRY! INFANTRY!  ZACK SABRE JR IS ON THE MIC!  WE ARE MORONS!  Oh my GOD, Sabre HAS to wrestle Angelico.  Blake Christian is hanging with fuckin ZSJ and it rules.  THEN!  Sabre just starts fucking mauling Christian.  Christian has a comeback and he hits a Tope that ZSJ counters with a motherfucking CRAVATE~!  So fucking awesome.  Sabre calls out the American Dragon!  Christian has ANOTHER comeback!  Flying Cross Body. DANGEROUS BACKDROP!  FOR TWO!  Sabre cuts him off with a Front Face Lock into a Suplex!  Blake with a Spear on the apron to a Tope Con Hilo!  FUCT UP SUBMISSION #9 by ZSJ!  Ropebreak!  HOPE SPOT SPANISH FLY!  Blake with a BEAUTIFUL BRAINBUSTER!  FUCT UP SUBMISSION #67 and Blake taps.  That was fucking GREAT!  Christopher Daniels!  IT IS ROH!  Rohit Raju!  I didn't know he was an X Division champion.  Cagematch.net sez, "Yep."  2020.  How did that slip my mind?  Jora Johl CHEATS!  A LOT! GREAT Backdrop Driver by Daniels.  Exploider by Daniels!  Moonsault for the win!  Rhett Titus and Tracy Williams are ON THE MIC!  Aussie Open is now also ON THE MIC!  JOSH WOODS!  KONOSUKE TAKESHITA!  Well, THIS should rule.  They start off with the 1990s New Japan shoulder tackle championship.  Ten punch by Soup drives Woods into STEINER mode!  Woods beats on Soup for a while.  TakeshitaLINE!  DDT on the apron by Soup!  BLUE THUNDER BOMB for TWO!  DOCTOR BOMB by WOODS!  Twisting Superplex by Woods!  GREAT trade of suplexes!  Double Lariats!  EVEREST GERMAN SUPLEX FOR THE WIN!  THAT WAS FUCKING AWESOME.  Josh Woods is fucking AWESOME.  KONOSUKE TAKESHITA IS MOTHERFUCKING AEWSOME!   The Embassy crush some dudes!  Oh, I remember LSG!  He gets slaughtered!  Metalik!  Ari Daivari!  Metalik is fun.  Ari looks good in this.  Metalik is spectacular!  HE is bouncing off the ropes all over the ring.  SHENANIGANS!  ARI WINS! ARI WINS! ARI WINS!  AR Fox is on the MIC!  The Renegades!  I thought they were signed to NWA?  It is acknowledged.  Skye Blue and Madison Rayne!  Rayne is a face in peril and the Renegades are good for a stiff heel beatdown.  Robyn and Charlette beat the crap out of Blue.  This is the best Rayne match since she jumped. SkyFall for the win!  That good in a DARk kind of way.  Wheeler Yuta is on the MIC!  HOLY SHIT!  TIMOTHY THATCHER!  Well, THAT will rule!  Willow Nightingale!  LADY FROST!  I haven;t seen LAdy Frost since that amazing Cibernetico from CMLL.  LAdy Frost is all gymnastic and shit.  She rules.  Nice Doctor Bomb for the win!  That was good.  ATHENA! ATHENA! ATHENA!  Well, THAT'll be good!   AR Fox!  HE is wrestling more than Brian Cage and Orange Cassidy.  Now!  He takes on Claudio Castagnoli!  FOR THE TITLE!  This match is FAST.  Fox uses his Strange Style and Claudio uses his power to counter.  GREAT dropkick by Claudio as Fox was in toprope.  Claudio is SHOWBOATING his power.  So many Gutwrench Suplexes!  Half Crab by Claudio and Fox makes the ropes.  Fox is taking an assbeating.  Fox DDTs to comeback!  Fox' strange offense kicks in.  GIGANTIC TOPE CON HILO! GREAT SWANTON by Fox FOR TWO!  GIANT SWING!  NEARFALLS!  DEATH VALLEY DRIVER and 450 for TWO!  Giant UPPERCUT FOR THE WIN!  That was fucking GREAT.  This is the BEST POSSIBLE WCW SATURDAY NIGHT!  Oh wait!  Eddie Kingston!  Well, THAT should be good!  That whole program was fucking. awesome.  ROH RULES THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD.

 

 

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I missed the first half of the show since I didn't realize it was being streamed live instead of on demand. I assume it will be on demand so i can watch it later. From what I saw of it, it was good. 

Glad to see Timothy Thatcher will be in ROH. That should be a damn good match with Yuta.

AR Fox vs. Claudio was a really good match. Just a great back and forth.

Loved the ending of the show with Eddie coming out. Claudio has no time for him. Just good stuff.

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6 minutes ago, Phantom Lord said:

I missed the first half of the show since I didn't realize it was being streamed live instead of on demand. I assume it will be on demand so i can watch it later. From what I saw of it, it was good. 

Glad to see Timothy Thatcher will be in ROH. That should be a damn good match with Yuta.

AR Fox vs. Claudio was a really good match. Just a great back and forth.

Loved the ending of the show with Eddie coming out. Claudio has no time for him. Just good stuff.

It aired a repeat airing as soon as it ended, I'm watching as we speak.

 

Woods/Takeshita is some real high quality graps, Woods did a dead lift gutwrench using the top rope as leverage that wowed me.

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Awesome show. Thought the overall look of the show was really good as far as coming off with a different feel. Glad it is a two hour show and this felt action packed with everything from the matches to the promos, both in-ring and backstage, and lots of good stuff hyped or set up for the following week and beyond.  Kingston's killer theme has a great 'oh shit' feel to it, love the history with he and Claudio still. Very enjoyable show, felt like a definite success for a first episode. Definitely will be looking forward to each week.

ZSJ/Blake, Woods/Takeshita, Mark/Slim, and the main event especially all ruled with lots of time. Always love seeing the Renegades everywhere, fun match with Skye & Madison. Daniels always rules too.

For anyone wondering, it went up onDemand fairly quickly after the initial airing (I noticed it about 20 mins after)

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So there have been two hour wrestling shows, of course, but this is two hours without commercials so it's a lot of wrestling.

  • Slim J and Mark Briscoe matched up real well. Slim's just got such a veteran's sense of pacing so they had all of the comebacks and cutoffs perfect here. He's also so comfortable in how he moves around the ring, making really difficult things look easy. Plus his rapid-fire short clotheslines are awesome. Mark is an absolute folk hero right now. You got the sense that despite how good Slim J is, the crowd was a little dubious about the Trustbusters coming out first, but everything turned immediately into a party atmosphere when Mark came out. I'm pretty sure this was a brand new match up too (which is a benefit of Slim working southern indies for fifteen years. They were great at getting the crowd to clap up for Mark but in having Slim J annoy everyone and get actual heat.
  • Infantry vs Kingdom was a nice little sprint. Kingdom's stuff is so smooth. I like how they went back and forth with a bunch of stuff but still more or less kept the tags up. It never fully broke down. Taven running aroudn the outside taking guys out to set up the finish worked well too.
  • ZSJ's promo was good but he kept blinking weirdly. Just saying. Really like the Undertones style theme with the record though. I love the Kingdom's theme too for what it's worth. 2023 Sabre is so much fun to watch just how he transitions from hold to hold to hold. Ian and Caprice did a nice job explaining it all. The catch into a cravat on the first dive was amazing and they did a good job with the usual house style set up/payoff, both with things like Blake spinning for a trip and then getting one later or, yeah, the dive. Also there were some moments that were so believable, like when ZSJ really opened up the arm after the twisting wristlock and when Christian absolutely failed to cover him after the KO knee and the announcers called him on it. You really felt that. I think this probably should have went home after the dive when he caught him in the Cobra Twist actually, but I don't get to make these calls. It was a complete story at that point. After that, they went back to the arm but Blake really dropped it when he hit the DVD, which was a bit I didn't love since he basically was in a double wristlock when he hit it. I was totally ok with them going away from the arm earlier because that was a choice by Sabre on the attack. Overall, more to like than to dislike here though.
  • Daniels vs Raju was a perfectly fine wrestling match. It probably could have used a minute or two from the ZSJ match. Daniels could have given him a bit more maybe? Ian and Caprice, again, did a good job with it. Raju is a fun studio promo so it's a bit of a shame Daniels got the video package instead of a backstage talk from him, especially since he was going to get eaten up.
  • I like Woods' shirt. Look, I'm a low vote on Takeshita because, while I absolutely acknowledge his tools, I think he's problematic, when driving a match, with pacing and structure. You plug him into someone else's match, which is often a possibility when he's a babyface, and he brings a lot to the table. I just happen to think he should have won most overrated instead of most underrated in the WON. This might be my favorite match with him ever as Woods really grounded things and they set up a lot of clear, clean, logical, meaningful sequences. A lot of more modern, twisty offense bugs me, but I really do like those twisting suplexes/brainbusters like Woods' does and Dustin's finisher. Woods' impressive power stuff (that, the gutwrench with a foot on the ropes) all looked great and Takeshita hit hard when he should have hit hard. Great Chaos Theory battle at the end too leading to the wheelbarrow German. This was really good and they should run back Woods vs Claudio again. I'd be all for Woods/Nese/Davari vs the Embassy too for that matter.
  • Speaking of the Embassy, they made short work of their opponents. Again, I liked how the tags were a focus and rules were adhered to. I wonder who's agenting this and if it's a conscious difference with AEW vs ROH?
  • Davari vs Metalik was good. Some of the shine that Dorada had in 2015 is long, long gone, and I'm a little burnt out at this point of the show, even with the palette cleanser. The idea of paying so that they don't show Metalik's entrance is good (and a good way to save a minute too). Davari took all of Metalik's stuff well and I liked the BS at the end since the show hadn't had a ton of that so far.
  • Renegades' inexplicable modem theme always makes me laugh. Charlette had the trashtalk. I know Robyn had a few more matches but I'm not convinced Charlette didn't look better in there in general. Granted, I was relying on Ian telling me which is why. I always like when Taz asks Excalibur these things and he gives you the cheat sheet. Not a lot to say overall. They never really had control over Rayne and Skye for any length of time, but Skye's shots always look good. I do think there's upside with the Renegades but I'm not sure if it's in AEW or WWE.
  • I spent a chunk of Frost vs Willow looking up Frost as I'd seen her listed for things but haven't seen her much. She got into wrestling in her early-mid 30s a few years ago? That's pretty unusual. She's very quick and agile while still making everything look solid (though some of that was Willow basing). They're rushing to Athena vs Willow way too soon. That should be the payoff to December! Light vs Darkness. Feud of the year.
  • So here's a generalization about AR Fox's offense vs Swerve's, and no one's reading this far, but this is the most interesting thing I have to say. Swerve adds in additional rolls and flips and twists in order to make his stuff look more impactful, though it generally doesn't. You have to take it on faith and I'm not always there. AR Fox does a lot of those things to create openings for his offense. It's a subtle difference but it's why one is more suited to be a heel and one is more suited to be a face. Claudio, however, was amazing in just cutting those openings off for the first third of the match, forcing Fox to get even more creative with it. Both guys were wrestling like they had something to prove.
  • On the one hand, while it's hilarious that Eddie sees himself as an independent contractor when guys are clearly working AEW and ROH. On the other hand, it's so endearingly Eddie. I liked his little "Ooooh" when the fans started to chant his name.

So that was definitely good, but it was pretty exhausting too! More good wrestling is always better than less good wrestling.

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I had a random thought as I started watching.  “This going to need at least 1-2 squash matches to facilitate a 1st episode”.  They wisely booked The Embassy that way.  Although I might have placed it earlier in the show (or even 1st) to step on the gas and quicken the pace of the show.  
 

This Honor Club experiment is already fighting from underneath in an over saturated market where even more high profile brands struggle to get attention.  I’m in… for now.

 

The production quality is very good boosted no doubt by the existing AEW infrastructure.  
 

It was cool to see the Renegades do some different work.  This was their chance to show what else they could do other than JUST put someone higher in the pecking order over.  They did that too.  But booked in a way that gave them some spotlight highlights before they did.  Good start.  
 

Yuta is an interesting guy.  It’s borderline “short man’s syndrome”.  But I’m here for it.  He is eventually going to have to shiv one of the BCC to step up.  
 

Lady Frost.  Call me.  I will hold every door open for you if you promise to that hand spring into every room.  Wakka wakka!

Athena vs. Willow is going to kill it.  
 


Bring back the aluminum crowd barrier signs.  Let the crowds make noise with them.

 

The nuttiest thing in wrestling to me these days is the complete reframing of the BIG SWING as a submission.  It just tickles me.

 

 

Edited by Brandon Bones
My other Lady Frost joke started with “I don’t know what I’ve been told…” but decided against it.
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