Welcome readers to my
annual blog dedicated to the
top indie wrestling company in America, Ring of Honor (RoH). I use to buy way too many RoH DVDs, but the last several years I restricted myself to just their
Supercard of Honor (SoH) show that usually transpires in the same location and weekend of
Wrestlemania each year. 2016 marked the 10th SoH show, and it occurred the same weekend and location as
Wrestlemania 32 in Dallas, TX. For the first time in SoH history, it got the “Night 1 & Night 2” treatment that RoH usually reserves for only a few of their marquee events each year. So this blog will be dedicated to covering both night one and two of SoH X.
Starting off with night one of SoH X, the DVD has a bonus preliminary women’s tag match of Mandy Leon & Solo Darling against Amber Gallows & Deonna Purrazzo. Darling is the first wrestling furry I believe to see compete in the ring, and Gallows is part of the white hot Bullet Club faction out of Japan that RoH is allowed to use in their company. Nothing too special out of this bout as the crowd was still filing in and could not get into it, but at least the match did have a pretty impressive double submission finish. I should also mention for both of these shows Kevin Kelly and Mr. Wrestling 3 (Steve Corino under a mask doing as good a job admitting he is not Corino as Owen Hart did admitting he was not the Blue Blazer) are the announcers.
Now let us move on to the main card of night one. The first official match saw Christopher Daniels against Bobby Fish. Been awhile since I saw Daniels and it is astonishing since I saw him on RoH’s first official show in 2002 that it looks like he has not aged a year! I am also digging his new World War I-inspired entrance attire. Bobby Fish delivered a moonsault as good as Daniels! Daniels wound up missing his moonsault though and Fish capitalized with an ankle lock submission for the win in a good opening bout. Next, the RoH star that simply will not leave, Roderick Strong took on Moose. Strong is still as dull as ever, but Moose however has “it” and I was almost instantly won over by him and surprised that he made the Diesel ‘choo choo’ taunt cool again after The Rock made that seemed almost impossible back in 2002. Even though I was on Moose’s side, it was Strong who got the win by doing his only noteworthy feat of the match, which were several brutal consecutive high knee strikes.
Next up was a six man scramble between Don Dijak, Cheeseburger, Adam Page, Kazarian, Dalton Castle and Don Diego. This match suffered with too much hokey comedy due to the nature of Dalton Castle’s character, who wound up getting the win by pinning the lovable underdog, Cheeseburger. I was glad to see Matt Sydal back in action for the first time since he was teaming up with Kofi Kingston as Evan Bourne several years ago. Sydal still is a capable high flyer, but he had a technical focused match here against Kyle ‘o Reilly. We did get to see Sydal perform his trademark Shooting Star Press, but it missed and Reilly got the win with a Kimura submission.
RoH in recent years finally got their own in-house music for wrestlers, or sign contracts with up-and-coming indie bands to perform wrestler’s themes. However, most of them do not match up with the wrestler’s personality at all. WWE is far better at matching the intensity of entrance themes to a wrestler’s character while it seems RoH lets the talent pick their entrance music. I am presuming this results in the RoH talent picking something they like personally, but more often than not sounds like something their character would not walk out to the ring to. One of the few exceptions is for ACH, I am down with his entrance music and it actually helped him get over quicker with me. Unfortunately his music did not lead him to victory as he lost in night one to Adam Cole after a dastardly low blow/neckbreaker combo.
Next up was an eight man tag with the Briscoes & War Machine against All Night Express, Beer City Bruiser & Silas Young. This was my first exposure to the
Beer City Bruiser, who looks like a modern day Dick Murdoch but somehow is capable of all kinds of flips that should not be possible for someone of his body type. Glad to see Silas Young back too and that he is still keeping the ‘80s Scott Hall look alive. This bout was enjoyable nonstop chaos with countless flips and dives, but delivered in a more lighthearted fashion to the crowd’s delight due to the nature of the personalities involved. The Briscoes and War Machine went to the pay window after Mark pinned the Bruiser with his Frog Elbow off the top turnbuckle.
The world title was on the line next with Jay Lethal defending against newcomer Lio Rush. Rush won RoH’s annual top prospect tournament and got a world title shot in return. This match told a convincing story of Rush being the rookie underdog who did not stand a chance against longtime champion Lethal, but somehow managed to not go down without a fight. Eventually Rush got pinned after the Lethal Injection. Lethal called out the locker room for a new challenger, and out came Colt Cabana making his RoH return after several years away. Colt delivered a passionate promo detailing why he came back and why he loves RoH. His promo actually threw me off though because I always remembered Colt as being more of a comedy act like Santino Marella, and this kind of mic work just did not sit right with me initially.
The main event saw the Young Bucks against the Motor City Machine Guns. I was actually looking forward to this match since I remember really digging both of these teams’ work in TNA. A year or two back I remember the Young Bucks being badasses from their last RoH work I saw, so I was bummed to see how they now evolved into Bullet Club members who just do ripoff DX and nWo taunts throughout their matches and
deliver over a dozen superkicks a match, all while Corino gratingly yells out on commentary the name of the move each time. It got old quick and seemed to be there more for the die-hard RoH fans amusement, but in a turnoff kind of way that the NXT Full Sail fans can be guilty of a lot with their antics at times. Granted, there were a lot of impressive spots in here throughout, but a lot of it suffered with too much being telegraphed, and very little selling at all, and both teams just seeming to be way more into the goofy hijinx that overstayed their welcome. Eventually, the Young Bucks got the win with their finisher, the Meltzer Driver.
That wrapped up night one, which had a couple solid mid-card matches, but the first night definitely felt disappointing with too many matches trying hard for laughs. My two matches of the night went to Letal/Rush and the eight man tag. The DVD bonus preliminary match for night two saw Shane Taylor & Keith Lee beat Shaheem Ali & Ken Phoenix after a nice looking elevation powerbomb for the pin.
Jay Lethal was not advertised for night two, but he opened up the show rebutting Colt’s promo and wanted to prove himself as a worthy champion and so he gave an instant world title shot to…..
Cheeseburger. The underdog accepted the match, but he was far less of a challenge than Rush was the night before and Lethal made quick work of him within a couple minutes and pinned him after a Lethal Injection. This did not sit well with Cabana who came out and baited Lethal into another impromptu match, but this one was not for the title. The two wildly brawl all over the arena for just a few minutes until Colt got a surprise roll-up for the win. Colt actually had a really good serious demeanor on him here and the previous night and showed a lot of good fire here that by the time he got the win here actually got me on his side and made me want to see him take on Lethal in an actual title match.
The next bout saw ACH & Matt Sydal defeat the All Night Express after ACH got the pin with his Midnight Splash off the top turnbuckle in a really good, electric tag match that never let up. The show was on a roll so far, but the following match between Will Ferrara against Donovan Dijak dragged it down a couple notches after Dijak had a couple nasty looking botches that took away from the match. Dijak proceeded to botch the finishing sequence and had to redo it all over again so he could walk away with the pin.
RoH must have known of my ‘praise’ for Strong and rewarded me with a two-out-of-three-falls match between him and Bobby Fish. The first two falls saw both Fish and Strong dominating for long stretches of time, only to see the other man catch a lucky break for a surprise pin. I will give both guys credit though for having a convincing final fall that saw Bobby Fish wind up victorious after a heel hook submission. Next up we had RoH star P-Dog trying to recapture the 2003 magic of John Cena’s ‘thuganomics’ era rapping his way down to the ring with his posse, but thankfully Moose let that die down quickly and demolished P-Dog and his entire crew to the crowd’s appreciation.
I was ecstatic to see Silas Young and the Beer City Bruiser challenge for the tag titles against War Machine next. It was an entertaining big man slugfest, with an occasional flip from the Bruiser to keep us on our feet. Unfortunately it was not enough as War Machine retained after their Fallout finisher. BJ Whitmer and Dalton Castle competed next. For what it is worth I am actually kind of enjoying how BJ Whitmer has now evolved into this rugged veteran with a chip on his shoulder. Castle got the win after a roll up from a distracted Whitmer. This match suffered again from Castle overdoing it on his shtick.
The semi-main event was a fatal four way tag match between the Addiction, Briscoes, Motor City Machine Guns and Young Bucks. This match was just all over the place and there were parts I really liked and other parts I despised. There were moments where the teams were on a roll with nonstop awesome spots that had me popping and others that seemed too dumb and telegraphed. There were also random moments where the teams decided to follow tag rules and longer durations where they did not, and the ref did not make a modicum of an effort to enforce the tag rules at all in the match. This actually got me appreciating the WWE refs more because they actually enforce the rules in the matches to give a more sports-like feel so you do not get some of the ludicrous moments this match suffered from. Despite all that, I was relieved to see the Briscoes get the win in this crazy affair after they hit their Doomsday finisher.
The main event for night two saw the end of a longstanding feud between Adam Cole and Kyle ‘o Reilly in a no holds barred match. This match started off with a lot of brawling all over the arena. Night two had the same theme of the first night where it seemed the main event was the only match that allowed actual selling of moves. There were a few creative submissions in here such as Cole getting an ankle lock with a chair in a way I never thought possible and Reilly getting the submission win after using a chain to enhance an armbar. Pretty good main event, but I will give the slight nod to night one having a better closing match. Overall though, I enjoyed night two’s offerings more as the comedy aspects as a whole seemed used more sparingly and effectively here and just a better paced show overall. If you had to get just one
Supercard of Honor X DVD, definitely get night two as night one is easily skip-able.
Also props to RoH for maintaining a decent lighting setup in the ring entrance and ring itself. It was only a couple years ago where it looked like RoH were still using the same ancient thrift store spotlights for their lighting when the company started in 2002 and their current setup helps their in ring product stand out exponentially more. They are only a notch or two under TNA/Impact Wrestling lighting quality now, which may not sound like much, but watch a SoH from just a few years ago, and trust me it is a big step up.
Past Wrestling Blogs
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
RoH Supercard of Honor VIII
RoH Supercard of Honor IX
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Sting: Into the Light
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
True Giants
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestlemania 30
Wrestlemania 31
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
Wrestlings Greatest Factions
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016
