An awesome friend surprised me a year ago by gifting me the complete BluRay series of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). Longtime readers of the blog will recall I spent most of 2014 going through and reviewing all of the Star Trek films once a month throughout the year. I can now look forward to analyzing each season of TNG right here! I may not be able to knock them out at my same rate as the movies since I only average watching about two episodes of TNG a week currently, but as I understand by the third season TNG gets pretty damn must-see, so maybe I will be cruising through the seasons at that point. As in previous TV season blogs, I will write these in a list style running down random highs and lows that popped out to me throughout the season.
-TNG premiered in 1987 (trailer) via syndication and not dedicated to a single major network. This was unheard of for such a show. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek and responsible for helming The Original Series and producing on the motion pictures was responsible for helping to create and produce TNG through its first few seasons. TNG focused on a new cast and crew of the iconic Enterprise vessel and takes place in 2364, just under a century after The Orginal Series started off.
-I am stoked to finally go into this overdue journey of watching every episode of TNG. Growing up as a 90s kid there always seemed to be reruns on cable of all the Star Trek shows. I was not a regular, weekly watcher, but with four different series out by the end of the 90s it became almost impossible not to stumble upon an episode channel surfing (remember that?). I absorbed roughly a dozen episodes of each series that way over the years. TNG seemed to resonate with me the most because of its iconic cast of characters, but I have also heard strong arguments for Deep Space Nine too.
-I had a fun conversation with my dad last weekend filling him in on my TNG quest and asked him about his memories of the show. I was surprised to learn he said he still watches the show because the networks still air reruns of most of the series on at late night and he usually falls asleep to it. He gave me a few fun memories of his, and we both shared a laugh at how different Ryker was in the first season without his intimidating, vintage beard.
-TNG has a strong, diverse cast and because the cast was so huge I noticed that almost every episode one or two of the supporting characters were not there so more time can be focused on the rest of the cast. The two primary stars are Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and First Officer Ryker (Jonathan Frakes) who are featured on every episode. Tasha Yars (Denise Crosby) is the badass security officer, Geordi (Levar Burton) and Data (Brent Spiner) are the two on-the-nose best friends helms-men of The Enterprise, Worf (Michael Dorn) is a battle-hardened Klingon whose advice consistently gets rejected, Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) seems to be a poor doctor as several patients pass away under her watch throughout this initial season and her son Wesley (Wil Wheaton) is not so affable either. The same can be said for Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis).
I had no recollection of Tasha or Wesley at all going into the series premiere since neither was in the movies I watched a few years ago. Troi is the only character I disliked throughout the first season. Her role as counselor and her psychic ability to ‘read feelings’ could not have been portrayed any worse since her ‘psychic readings’ was basic body language and context deductions that anyone should have been able to decipher. I am told her character is far less annoying in later seasons. Wesley is also a little bit of a buzzkill as the boy wonder Ensign on the bridge solving problems that the adults swiftly brush off, but I kind of get his role being there to resonate with younger viewers.
-There was no dedicated cast member as chief engineer for the first season and that role was randomly filled by several minor actors off and on throughout the season. One of the early chief engineers was Argyle (Bill Yeager). He was only a recurring character on two episodes for the first part of the season so I cracked up upon learning he started a letter writing campaign encouraged fans to write in of support to get him on the show more frequently. Naturally this lead to him instantly being booted off the show and being replaced with other chief engineers of the week until TNG settled on Geordi taking over that department from season two on.
-I recall hearing several times over the years the first year or two of TNG is a rough watch, primarily because Gene Roddenberry had final say over the show in the early years and he was notorious for countless last minute rewrites that became an issue in production. Sure enough, this season was a slog to get through with half the episodes featuring baffling plots and questioning points of conflict to base an episode around. A prominent example is the crew fighting off an airborne contamination that turns the infected into the equivalent of bumbling drunks with a maxed out sex drive. There are several other mind-numbing episodes with just as eyebrow-raising plots that made season one a chore, but there were at least several fairly good-to-strong episodes this debut season too that helped counterbalance the bad just a wee-bit.
-Even though he was not in the movies, I was aware of the ‘omnipotent presence’ known as Q (John de Lancie) due to seeing a online play-thru of the videogame Star Trek: Borg where he was the quirky sidekick in a FMV PC game chastising you for every decision you make. I was delighted to see him in the same quirky role in the two episodes he was on in the first season. I am not going to even attempt to explain his role here, but came to discover I will see him in six more episodes for the rest of TNG as he attempts stump the TNG crew with more of his dastardly challenges.
-TNG looks stunning in HD! Several years ago Paramount was able to re-master the entire series in HD because TNG was shot on 35mm film. For computer special effects they had to go in and painstakingly re-master all the individual CG effects by hand. It is well worth it because the show looks stunning now, and there are a couple extra features detailing all the hard work put in with the obligatory SD-HD comparison shots and it is amazing seeing the difference.
-Speaking of extras, saying there is a ton on here is an understatement. I tallied roughly three hours of extra features on the season one BluRay, among some are HD exclusives. The gag reel is uniquely compiled compared to countless others I have seen so do not gloss over that. There are also about eight other behind-the-scenes features and of those Launch and Continuing Mission get my top picks as thorough half hour deep dives on getting the show started and casted and highlighting its pivotal moments with archived and recent interviews from nearly the entire cast and crew. If you are into the aforementioned HD/SD upgrades to the show and how they pulled it off then definitely check out Energized: Taking TNG to the Next Level as it was a truly fascinating watch at Paramount’s remarkable job re-mastering TNG.
-One unofficial extra feature that has been tremendously helpful for me is the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation. Two writers from the sitcom, The Goldbergs host this show that dedicates each podcast to breaking down and analyzing every episode of TNG in chronological order. Both hosts are avid Trek fans, but one has never seen TNG before for some reason and it creates a great teacher/student dynamic to the show. They helped shed a lot of background information and filled in some gaps that I did not pick up on my initial watch. Minus the over-reliance on sound effect transitions, it wound up being the perfect supplementary material I consumed after every episode of TNG and if you ever decide to start watching through TNG from the beginning I give it the highest recommendation.
-Even though there are a lot of dud episodes in the first season, by the last several episodes it seemed like the cast was starting to gel and the episodes were slowly-but-surely becoming more compelling to watch. There is a tear-jerker Tasha episode that has a great final scene from her, and an awesome season finale I was on board with where The Enterprise picks up several human frozen in cryogenics in the 20th century and thaws them out for amusing antics on deck. I hear the show starts to ramp up next season, and is at max warp speed by season three on. Even though this season was a doozy, I did not mind persevering through it to see the origins of the cast and how far they will evolve in the following seasons. Please join me again here in a couple months for my log of season two!
Past TV/Web Series Blogs
2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5
Dale has too many unwatched DVDs and BluRays, so trying to commit to blogging at least a few reviews a month is his way of catching up.
Monday, September 24, 2018
Friday, September 21, 2018
2017-18 TV Season Recap: Part Three - Bonus Summer TV Edition
Previous TV Season Recaps - (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17)
2017-18 TV Season Recap Part One (Gotham, Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Jessica Jones, Punisher)
2017-18 TV Season Recap Part Two (South Park, Roseanne, Evil Genius, Orville, Riverdale)
Greetings and welcome to my summer TV blog recap! Like last year I am back with a bonus addendum to my 2017-18 TV Season recaps (links above!). It seems more and more shows are getting dropped in Netflix throughout the summer so it gives me some entertainment to indulge until the onslaught of comic book licensed shows from CW and FOX hit in the fall. I only was able to make time for three shows throughout the summer, so let us make haste to my thoughts on them below.
Glow - The ‘Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’ return to Netflix for a second season after the runaway success of its debut last year. Like its first season, GLOW comes up with new behind-the-scenes storylines and characters inspired by the roster of the actual GLOW promotion that existed in the mid-to-late 1980s. The show focuses on Ruth Wilder and Debbie Eagan as the main stars as GLOW, or as they are known by their character names ‘Liberty Belle’ & ‘Zoya the Destroya.’ Watching their polarizing relationship develop in and out of the ring was intriguing throughout the entire binge-friendly season that consisted of just ten, half hour long episodes. Eagan has a moment when facing Wilder in a main event match on GLOW when their legit past squabbles get to her head too much in the middle of a match and she winds up legit hurting Wilder that leads to a heated confrontation between the two at the hospital.
Bash and Sam are killer as the two lovable scumbag promoters. Both have excellent periphery arcs with the GLOW ladies and both are great at making me root and jeer for them many times throughout the season. The wrestling fan in me was stoked to see a bigger emphasis on the actual wrestling this season. Most episodes features a match or two being taped for the latest episode of GLOW, and one of the bigger arcs for the season is the future of the show is at stake and there is a lot of buildup for the season finale of GLOW where all the ladies bring their best efforts to the ring in order to save the show. Grade: A-
Arrested Development - I was a huge fan of the first three seasons of this show on FOX, and was excited for its return on Netflix after several years of it being off air in 2013. That changed when I saw the first episode of season four and did not watch another one once I realized each episode was going to focus on a small amount of characters because of the limited availability of the star-studded cast. I was then surprised to learn earlier this year that series creator Ron Howard painstakingly ‘remixed’ and re-released season four shortly before the first half of season five launched on Netflix earlier this year. The ‘remix’ is Howard re-ordering scenes from multiple episodes to give the illusion that the entire cast was there for each episode. Somehow, Ron did a masterful job at pulling it off and it resulted in a more enjoyable season. Highlights include the love/hate relationship between Gob and Tony Wonder, Michael & George Michael both chasing the same woman, Tobias’s love for the unreleased Fantastic Four film from the 90s, Lindsay’s devout-caring for people with face-blindness and the demise of a boy-band due to Gob’s neglect to his bee colony.
Netflix released the first half of season five earlier this year, with the second half set to release by the end of 2018. Even though there are five years between the release of seasons four and five, season five picks right up where four left off. That made me glad I held out for the unexpected and awesome ‘remix’ version of the far more watchable season four to jump in and watch seasons four and five back-to-back. Season five deals with the fallout of the Cinco de Quatro season four finale and it seems like every member of the Bluth family is facing jail time at one point or another due to their terrible deeds throughout the series. Lindsay is now trying to run for congress, the banana stand is revealed to have a tragic fate, Buster has a stint in the military that goes about as well as expected and Gob gets addicted to ‘forget-me-nows’ and even forces them on Michael at one point. Everything culminates in an unforgettable 2nd of July parade headlined by a tear-jerker of a magic act.
Grade: B
Luke Cage - What a big letdown from its debut season. The balance is 100% out of whack for the second season. There are too many scenes of people shooting Cage at point blank range and Cage just absorbing it in a gratuitous moment every episode. Only one time does someone shoot for his head, and when they do, they miss! Almost all the characters that had demises in the first season are replaced with far inferior versions the second season (Tilda, Comanche & D-Dub are painful to endure). Simone Missick is horribly casted as Misty Knight. I thought no one could eclipse Jennifer Garner with her ridiculous overacting facials, but Misty brings it in the worst ways all season long. To top it off, they give her a bionic-arm and have her teaming up with Luke in fight scenes that I could not buy into whatsoever.
I could have done with half the musical montages throughout the season, they were effective initially, but were played out halfway through the season and overstayed their welcome by tempting me to fast forward through them every time. Shades was a stellar supporting character last season, and they bump him into a main player in season two and he cannot pull off that big of a role. Mariah is a tremendous foil and has a couple powerful exchanges with other characters, and the introduction of Bushmaster was another interesting new villain for Cage to duel with. Part of me wanted to let this season slide with a D, but there are far too many gut-wrenching moments each episode to sit through that it is too much to overcome, so Luke Cage, season two winds up as one of the first individual seasons I rate with a…..
Grade: F
Past TV/Web Series Blogs
2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5
2017-18 TV Season Recap Part One (Gotham, Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Jessica Jones, Punisher)
2017-18 TV Season Recap Part Two (South Park, Roseanne, Evil Genius, Orville, Riverdale)
Greetings and welcome to my summer TV blog recap! Like last year I am back with a bonus addendum to my 2017-18 TV Season recaps (links above!). It seems more and more shows are getting dropped in Netflix throughout the summer so it gives me some entertainment to indulge until the onslaught of comic book licensed shows from CW and FOX hit in the fall. I only was able to make time for three shows throughout the summer, so let us make haste to my thoughts on them below.
Glow - The ‘Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’ return to Netflix for a second season after the runaway success of its debut last year. Like its first season, GLOW comes up with new behind-the-scenes storylines and characters inspired by the roster of the actual GLOW promotion that existed in the mid-to-late 1980s. The show focuses on Ruth Wilder and Debbie Eagan as the main stars as GLOW, or as they are known by their character names ‘Liberty Belle’ & ‘Zoya the Destroya.’ Watching their polarizing relationship develop in and out of the ring was intriguing throughout the entire binge-friendly season that consisted of just ten, half hour long episodes. Eagan has a moment when facing Wilder in a main event match on GLOW when their legit past squabbles get to her head too much in the middle of a match and she winds up legit hurting Wilder that leads to a heated confrontation between the two at the hospital.
Bash and Sam are killer as the two lovable scumbag promoters. Both have excellent periphery arcs with the GLOW ladies and both are great at making me root and jeer for them many times throughout the season. The wrestling fan in me was stoked to see a bigger emphasis on the actual wrestling this season. Most episodes features a match or two being taped for the latest episode of GLOW, and one of the bigger arcs for the season is the future of the show is at stake and there is a lot of buildup for the season finale of GLOW where all the ladies bring their best efforts to the ring in order to save the show. Grade: A-
Arrested Development - I was a huge fan of the first three seasons of this show on FOX, and was excited for its return on Netflix after several years of it being off air in 2013. That changed when I saw the first episode of season four and did not watch another one once I realized each episode was going to focus on a small amount of characters because of the limited availability of the star-studded cast. I was then surprised to learn earlier this year that series creator Ron Howard painstakingly ‘remixed’ and re-released season four shortly before the first half of season five launched on Netflix earlier this year. The ‘remix’ is Howard re-ordering scenes from multiple episodes to give the illusion that the entire cast was there for each episode. Somehow, Ron did a masterful job at pulling it off and it resulted in a more enjoyable season. Highlights include the love/hate relationship between Gob and Tony Wonder, Michael & George Michael both chasing the same woman, Tobias’s love for the unreleased Fantastic Four film from the 90s, Lindsay’s devout-caring for people with face-blindness and the demise of a boy-band due to Gob’s neglect to his bee colony.
Netflix released the first half of season five earlier this year, with the second half set to release by the end of 2018. Even though there are five years between the release of seasons four and five, season five picks right up where four left off. That made me glad I held out for the unexpected and awesome ‘remix’ version of the far more watchable season four to jump in and watch seasons four and five back-to-back. Season five deals with the fallout of the Cinco de Quatro season four finale and it seems like every member of the Bluth family is facing jail time at one point or another due to their terrible deeds throughout the series. Lindsay is now trying to run for congress, the banana stand is revealed to have a tragic fate, Buster has a stint in the military that goes about as well as expected and Gob gets addicted to ‘forget-me-nows’ and even forces them on Michael at one point. Everything culminates in an unforgettable 2nd of July parade headlined by a tear-jerker of a magic act.
Grade: B
Luke Cage - What a big letdown from its debut season. The balance is 100% out of whack for the second season. There are too many scenes of people shooting Cage at point blank range and Cage just absorbing it in a gratuitous moment every episode. Only one time does someone shoot for his head, and when they do, they miss! Almost all the characters that had demises in the first season are replaced with far inferior versions the second season (Tilda, Comanche & D-Dub are painful to endure). Simone Missick is horribly casted as Misty Knight. I thought no one could eclipse Jennifer Garner with her ridiculous overacting facials, but Misty brings it in the worst ways all season long. To top it off, they give her a bionic-arm and have her teaming up with Luke in fight scenes that I could not buy into whatsoever.
I could have done with half the musical montages throughout the season, they were effective initially, but were played out halfway through the season and overstayed their welcome by tempting me to fast forward through them every time. Shades was a stellar supporting character last season, and they bump him into a main player in season two and he cannot pull off that big of a role. Mariah is a tremendous foil and has a couple powerful exchanges with other characters, and the introduction of Bushmaster was another interesting new villain for Cage to duel with. Part of me wanted to let this season slide with a D, but there are far too many gut-wrenching moments each episode to sit through that it is too much to overcome, so Luke Cage, season two winds up as one of the first individual seasons I rate with a…..
Grade: F
Past TV/Web Series Blogs
2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5
Monday, September 3, 2018
RoH Supercard of Honor XII & All-In
Greetings everyone and welcome to my yearly blog covering Ring of Honor’s latest Supercard of Honor (SoH) pay-per-view. 2018 marks the 12th SoH event, and I have seen them all so make sure to click here to catch up on my past entries. My copy of SoH XII arrived in the mail within the last week and I made sure to breeze through it before the big independent wrestling show, All In, that transpired a couple days ago and turned out to be a historic night for wrestling. Stay with me here after my write-up for SoH XII for some quick thoughts on All In.
SoH XII emanated from New Orleans, and as per tradition happened the same weekend in the same city as WWE’s flagship PPV, Wrestlemania. RoH did this to capitalize on the ardent fans travelling around the world looking to eat up as much wrestling as possible that weekend. Kevin Kelly is not behind the announcer’s booth this year, but Colt Cabana and Ian Riccaboni return and having a two-man booth this year resulted in far better commentary compared to before. Sinclair Broadcasting is still the owner of RoH and it is good to see them maintain the big step up in production values that were apparent last year. Once again there is a near-WWE quality entrance area with several LED-trons and professional caliber graphics and instant replays throughout the night. Colt & Ian pointed out they have a RoH record-breaking attendance tonight of roughly 6,000 people. It is worth pointing out for 2019’s Wrestlemania weekend show RoH has become the first non-WWE promotion to book the heralded Madison Square Garden in several decades and has already sold it out which will make that 10,000+ attendance their new attendance record.
Last year I mentioned a big change to RoH going into the 2017 SoH was they brought back their own women’s division after relying on a long partnership with indie promotion Shimmer providing their talent for RoH’s women wrestling. I do not watch the weekly Sinclair RoH TV show regularly, so I have no idea why it took RoH over a year to finally crown their first official RoH Women’s Champion on this night at SoH XII. The semi-finals of their championship tournament took place on the pre-show and are on the DVD as bonus features. They saw Kelly Klein defeating Mayu Iwatani with a rear naked choke and Sumie Saki beating Tenille Dashwood (formerly WWE’s Emma) with a roll-up to advance to the finals on the main card.
Also on the DVD as extra features are two half hour long Q&A sessions. One is with RoH World champ, Dalton Castle and the other is with the Bullet Club’s Young Bucks, Adam Page and Marty Scurll. Both sessions have mostly good fan interaction and a variety of love from the fans with a good mix of questions. Both are nice extras and I hope to see more like this on future RoH releases. Speaking of the Bullet Club, over the past few months I have started watching their weekly YouTube show, Being the Elite. It took me a few episodes, but I finally latched onto their ‘Attitude-era’ nostalgia brand of humor. That show, along with with Cody Rhodes’ All Us and the NWA’s Ten Pounds of Gold YouTube series combined to be a great hook for promoting All In.
Moving onto the main card, it officially opened with Chuckie T besting Jonathan Gresham with a rollup in a solid opener. Next up, Punishment Martinez survived a nasty suicide dive onto Tomo Ishii, and went on to win after executing a chokeslam. The first standout bout of the night took place next with Kota Ibushi defeating Adam Page with a knee to the face in a tremendous match that also saw a flawless moonsault to the outside, a German Suplex FROM THE GUARDRAIL (!) and a freaking cradle-Tombstone.
The women’s tournament final saw Sumie Sakai being crowned the inaugural RoH Women’s champion after hitting a DDT on Kelly Klein. The match also had a special moment when the other tournament competitors came out midway through and started pounding the mat nonstop to psych up Kelly and Sumie. RoH’s 6-man tag titles were on the line next which saw SCU’s Chistopher Daniels, Kaz & Scorpio Sky retain their gold over the Young Bucks and Flip Gordon in a ladder mach with too many remarkable spots to list them all. There was a Jeff Hardy-esque Swanton from the ladder, Flip nearly biffing a splash to the outside, Nick Jackson showing off his dazzling ladder hopscotch skills and many tables getting broken. Ultimately, it was Daniels grabbing the belt to retain for SCU. What a year it has been for Daniels evolving from veteran on a gold watch run as RoH World champ last year to zany faction leader with catchy theme song dedicated to an online PWG fan forum he once frequented.
SoH XII then had its intermission, but people watching live and on this DVD were presented with a taped preliminary match at the start of the evening featuring Brian Milonas & The Beer City Bruiser defeating the Motor City Machine Guns and Luke & PJ Hawx in a triple threat after BCB & Milonas connected with their rendition of my favorite tag team finishing move, The Power Plex. Next the standard tag team titles were on the line that saw RoH lifers and one of my all-time favorite teams, The Briscoes successfully defend their titles against Jay Lethal & Hiroshi Tanahashi. The announcers focused on how commissioner Bully Ray convinced the Briscoes to ditch they ‘redneck kung-fu’ style they were rocking last year and return to their badass brawling roots. I was surprised to see a RoH tag match that primarily stuck to tag format rules as that is rare for RoH in general, and was ecstatic to see the Briscoes bust out the Doomsday Device to win the match!
Magnum PI/80s Scott Hall clone Silas Young had a memorable night next as he won the TV title back from Kenny King in a ‘Last Man Standing’ match. The standout spot here was King’s Shooting Star Press through a table, but Young 1-up’d King by having his ally Beer City Bruiser sneak under the ring and ziptie King’s feet together while recovering from a spot that prevented him to answer a 10-count and see Young emerge as new champion! John Cena should take note here on the correct way to do this finish instead of his cringe-inducing way to beat Batista at Extreme Rules 2010.
A seemingly buffer tag team match proceeded after, but it proved to be one of the most memorable moments of the night. Eli Isom & Cheeseburger were suppose to face The Dawgz, but a sneak attack during their entrance immobilized Isom and commissioner Bully Ray came out and said if Cheeseburger could not find a replacement then they would forfeit the match. Fan favorite, Cheeseburger pleaded Ray to be his partner, and after some reluctance agreed and the two went on to unleash some Dudley nostalgia offense until Ray turned on Cheeseburger and chokeslammed him. Ray then cut a villainous promo saying Cheeseburger should not have patronized him and proceeded to rip on the high-flying style of most RoH talent and threatened to stop the show in front of the RoH CEO by performing a banished move in front of the Louisiana Athletic Commission. The match was eventually thrown out, and Ray instead just gave a sick powerbomb to ‘Burger instead and walked out. It was an intense segment that got the crowd all riled up, and seeing Bully Ray as a nasty villain is what he is always best in, so props to him here!
Bullet Club leaders collided next in Cody vs. Kenny Omega. After watching enough Being the Elite I can proudly claim to be a fan of Bernard the Business Bear and was nice to see him get in some early comedy spots here before getting ejected from ringside. Cody and Kenny fought a hell of a match with many big moments and near-falls, and poor Brandi Rhodes inadvertently falling through a table. The finish saw the Young Bucks coming out to help Kenny, but accidentally super-kicking Kenny instead, which lead to Cody hitting the Crossroads for the win. The main event saw Marty Scurll attempt to win the RoH World Championship from Dalton Castle. It was a fine closer until it came to a screeching halt when Scurll wasted three-to-four minutes looking for his trademark bag of powder under the ring. It was so bad that Castle eventually improv’d and bought more time for Scurll until he mercifully found the illusive white substance. It proved to be worthwhile though because the almighty powder was the catalyst for the finishing sequence that naturally saw the powder backfire on Scurll, which lead to Scurll mistaking the ref for Castle and snapping the ref’s fingers. This ultimately built up to the ref cringing in pain and running to the back when attempting to count a near-fall for Castle in a brilliant piece of booking. Castle then spent a couple minutes fighting out of a chicken-wing submission before recovering to hit his Bang-a-Rang finish for the victory.
SoH XII easily ranks in the top half of SoH shows, and I would have to take a deep look at the line-ups, but off the top of my head I think I can safely say it would be in my top three cards bearing the Superard of Honor name. It is a long show, but there is a ton of good stuff on here. Ibushi/Page, both tag title matches, Kenny/Cody, Young/King and the last five minutes of the main event are all must-see and collectively make this a cannot miss show!
I am running long enough already, but I am still buzzing from All In two days ago so I will chime in with some quick thoughts on the historic night for indie wrestling. If you are unfamiliar with the show, I will once again point you towards Cody Rhodes’ All Us YouTube series which is about how the show all came together to be the biggest drawing crowd for indie-wrestling this century. For me, the marquee bout was seeing Cody Rhodes battle for the prestigious NWA World’s Heavyweight Championship against Nick Aldis. Seeing Cody come so far and emerge as a headlining act after honing his craft on the indie-scene the last two years had me rooting for Cody to carry on his father’s legacy and revitalize the NWA brand as its new champion.
Cody did just that and All In delivered in spades for having the NWA Title match have a ‘big time fight’ feel and I had goosebumps as both Cody & Nick walked to the ring with their entourage of WWE Hall of Famers. That rarely happens for me, and while the match may not have been a high-spot, high-flying affair, it easily had five star drama and moments throughout with Cody being possibly knocked and busted open and later Brandi sacrificing herself and covering up Cody to eat a top rope elbow from Nick. Seeing Cody eventually recover and get the best of Nick in a reversal sequence for the win and championship with an emotional celebration was a powerful moment I will never forget.
Other quick thoughts on the rest of the card was the women had a killer four way match, which unfortunately had a mistimed finish, but otherwise had a ton of great action. As a big Arrow fan I was incredibly stoked to see Stephen Amell go hold-for-hold with Christopher Daniels. The match lasted longer than I thought, and even though Amell looked wiped by the end, he was still capable of delivering several moves I never would have thought possible from someone in only their third-ever match. Adam Page and Janela had a bout filled with all kinds of fun inventive spots, and the Joey Ryan post match tomfoolery will be something talked about for years to come. Props to Don Callis’s ‘phalanx of phalluses’ call being the line of the night.
I absolutely ate up Jay Lethal/Flip Gordon paying homage to Randy Savage’s Wrestlemania matches with Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior. Omega and Pentagon had a ton of highspots and eventually settled into a high-caliber match, and I was popping like the rest of the crowd for Chris Jeriho’s surprise post-match attack! Okada and Scurll had my second favorite match of the night behind Cody/Aldis with tons of epic near-falls and RAAAAAINMAKERs that got me and the crowd popping like crazy before Okada did two in a row for the win. The headlining six-man tag with Young Bucks & Ibushi against Mysterio/Badido/Fenix was light-out from start-to-finish because it came to light afterwards a couple matches went long earlier and the six had to cruise through the match and barely got the finish in time where the Bucks pinned Badido after their signature Meltzer Driver about 20 seconds before All In went off the air.
All In will go down as a truly special night for wrestling. It was a much-needed change-up from the standard PPV fare from WWE. The last time I felt this way with a PPV as a whole was for the first ECW One Night Stand. My hat is off for Cody and The Young Bucks putting together this stellar card that collected top acts from RoH, Impact, New Japan, CMLL and other promotions to capitalize on the hot indie-scene of wrestling from the past couple of years. If you only watch WWE programming and always wanted to try something different, but have no idea where to start on wanting to watch just one other show from the countless other promotions out there, then go out of your way now to make All In that one show.
Past Wrestling Blogs
Best of WCW Clash of Champions
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
DDP: Positively Living
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
The Kliq Rules
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History
Owen: Hart of Gold
RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Sting: Into the Light
Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz
Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
TNA Lockdown 2005-2016
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
True Giants
Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns
Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe
War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28-Present
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money
Wrestlings Greatest Factions
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017
SoH XII emanated from New Orleans, and as per tradition happened the same weekend in the same city as WWE’s flagship PPV, Wrestlemania. RoH did this to capitalize on the ardent fans travelling around the world looking to eat up as much wrestling as possible that weekend. Kevin Kelly is not behind the announcer’s booth this year, but Colt Cabana and Ian Riccaboni return and having a two-man booth this year resulted in far better commentary compared to before. Sinclair Broadcasting is still the owner of RoH and it is good to see them maintain the big step up in production values that were apparent last year. Once again there is a near-WWE quality entrance area with several LED-trons and professional caliber graphics and instant replays throughout the night. Colt & Ian pointed out they have a RoH record-breaking attendance tonight of roughly 6,000 people. It is worth pointing out for 2019’s Wrestlemania weekend show RoH has become the first non-WWE promotion to book the heralded Madison Square Garden in several decades and has already sold it out which will make that 10,000+ attendance their new attendance record.
Last year I mentioned a big change to RoH going into the 2017 SoH was they brought back their own women’s division after relying on a long partnership with indie promotion Shimmer providing their talent for RoH’s women wrestling. I do not watch the weekly Sinclair RoH TV show regularly, so I have no idea why it took RoH over a year to finally crown their first official RoH Women’s Champion on this night at SoH XII. The semi-finals of their championship tournament took place on the pre-show and are on the DVD as bonus features. They saw Kelly Klein defeating Mayu Iwatani with a rear naked choke and Sumie Saki beating Tenille Dashwood (formerly WWE’s Emma) with a roll-up to advance to the finals on the main card.
Also on the DVD as extra features are two half hour long Q&A sessions. One is with RoH World champ, Dalton Castle and the other is with the Bullet Club’s Young Bucks, Adam Page and Marty Scurll. Both sessions have mostly good fan interaction and a variety of love from the fans with a good mix of questions. Both are nice extras and I hope to see more like this on future RoH releases. Speaking of the Bullet Club, over the past few months I have started watching their weekly YouTube show, Being the Elite. It took me a few episodes, but I finally latched onto their ‘Attitude-era’ nostalgia brand of humor. That show, along with with Cody Rhodes’ All Us and the NWA’s Ten Pounds of Gold YouTube series combined to be a great hook for promoting All In.
Moving onto the main card, it officially opened with Chuckie T besting Jonathan Gresham with a rollup in a solid opener. Next up, Punishment Martinez survived a nasty suicide dive onto Tomo Ishii, and went on to win after executing a chokeslam. The first standout bout of the night took place next with Kota Ibushi defeating Adam Page with a knee to the face in a tremendous match that also saw a flawless moonsault to the outside, a German Suplex FROM THE GUARDRAIL (!) and a freaking cradle-Tombstone.
The women’s tournament final saw Sumie Sakai being crowned the inaugural RoH Women’s champion after hitting a DDT on Kelly Klein. The match also had a special moment when the other tournament competitors came out midway through and started pounding the mat nonstop to psych up Kelly and Sumie. RoH’s 6-man tag titles were on the line next which saw SCU’s Chistopher Daniels, Kaz & Scorpio Sky retain their gold over the Young Bucks and Flip Gordon in a ladder mach with too many remarkable spots to list them all. There was a Jeff Hardy-esque Swanton from the ladder, Flip nearly biffing a splash to the outside, Nick Jackson showing off his dazzling ladder hopscotch skills and many tables getting broken. Ultimately, it was Daniels grabbing the belt to retain for SCU. What a year it has been for Daniels evolving from veteran on a gold watch run as RoH World champ last year to zany faction leader with catchy theme song dedicated to an online PWG fan forum he once frequented.
SoH XII then had its intermission, but people watching live and on this DVD were presented with a taped preliminary match at the start of the evening featuring Brian Milonas & The Beer City Bruiser defeating the Motor City Machine Guns and Luke & PJ Hawx in a triple threat after BCB & Milonas connected with their rendition of my favorite tag team finishing move, The Power Plex. Next the standard tag team titles were on the line that saw RoH lifers and one of my all-time favorite teams, The Briscoes successfully defend their titles against Jay Lethal & Hiroshi Tanahashi. The announcers focused on how commissioner Bully Ray convinced the Briscoes to ditch they ‘redneck kung-fu’ style they were rocking last year and return to their badass brawling roots. I was surprised to see a RoH tag match that primarily stuck to tag format rules as that is rare for RoH in general, and was ecstatic to see the Briscoes bust out the Doomsday Device to win the match!
Magnum PI/80s Scott Hall clone Silas Young had a memorable night next as he won the TV title back from Kenny King in a ‘Last Man Standing’ match. The standout spot here was King’s Shooting Star Press through a table, but Young 1-up’d King by having his ally Beer City Bruiser sneak under the ring and ziptie King’s feet together while recovering from a spot that prevented him to answer a 10-count and see Young emerge as new champion! John Cena should take note here on the correct way to do this finish instead of his cringe-inducing way to beat Batista at Extreme Rules 2010.
A seemingly buffer tag team match proceeded after, but it proved to be one of the most memorable moments of the night. Eli Isom & Cheeseburger were suppose to face The Dawgz, but a sneak attack during their entrance immobilized Isom and commissioner Bully Ray came out and said if Cheeseburger could not find a replacement then they would forfeit the match. Fan favorite, Cheeseburger pleaded Ray to be his partner, and after some reluctance agreed and the two went on to unleash some Dudley nostalgia offense until Ray turned on Cheeseburger and chokeslammed him. Ray then cut a villainous promo saying Cheeseburger should not have patronized him and proceeded to rip on the high-flying style of most RoH talent and threatened to stop the show in front of the RoH CEO by performing a banished move in front of the Louisiana Athletic Commission. The match was eventually thrown out, and Ray instead just gave a sick powerbomb to ‘Burger instead and walked out. It was an intense segment that got the crowd all riled up, and seeing Bully Ray as a nasty villain is what he is always best in, so props to him here!
Bullet Club leaders collided next in Cody vs. Kenny Omega. After watching enough Being the Elite I can proudly claim to be a fan of Bernard the Business Bear and was nice to see him get in some early comedy spots here before getting ejected from ringside. Cody and Kenny fought a hell of a match with many big moments and near-falls, and poor Brandi Rhodes inadvertently falling through a table. The finish saw the Young Bucks coming out to help Kenny, but accidentally super-kicking Kenny instead, which lead to Cody hitting the Crossroads for the win. The main event saw Marty Scurll attempt to win the RoH World Championship from Dalton Castle. It was a fine closer until it came to a screeching halt when Scurll wasted three-to-four minutes looking for his trademark bag of powder under the ring. It was so bad that Castle eventually improv’d and bought more time for Scurll until he mercifully found the illusive white substance. It proved to be worthwhile though because the almighty powder was the catalyst for the finishing sequence that naturally saw the powder backfire on Scurll, which lead to Scurll mistaking the ref for Castle and snapping the ref’s fingers. This ultimately built up to the ref cringing in pain and running to the back when attempting to count a near-fall for Castle in a brilliant piece of booking. Castle then spent a couple minutes fighting out of a chicken-wing submission before recovering to hit his Bang-a-Rang finish for the victory.
SoH XII easily ranks in the top half of SoH shows, and I would have to take a deep look at the line-ups, but off the top of my head I think I can safely say it would be in my top three cards bearing the Superard of Honor name. It is a long show, but there is a ton of good stuff on here. Ibushi/Page, both tag title matches, Kenny/Cody, Young/King and the last five minutes of the main event are all must-see and collectively make this a cannot miss show!
I am running long enough already, but I am still buzzing from All In two days ago so I will chime in with some quick thoughts on the historic night for indie wrestling. If you are unfamiliar with the show, I will once again point you towards Cody Rhodes’ All Us YouTube series which is about how the show all came together to be the biggest drawing crowd for indie-wrestling this century. For me, the marquee bout was seeing Cody Rhodes battle for the prestigious NWA World’s Heavyweight Championship against Nick Aldis. Seeing Cody come so far and emerge as a headlining act after honing his craft on the indie-scene the last two years had me rooting for Cody to carry on his father’s legacy and revitalize the NWA brand as its new champion.
Cody did just that and All In delivered in spades for having the NWA Title match have a ‘big time fight’ feel and I had goosebumps as both Cody & Nick walked to the ring with their entourage of WWE Hall of Famers. That rarely happens for me, and while the match may not have been a high-spot, high-flying affair, it easily had five star drama and moments throughout with Cody being possibly knocked and busted open and later Brandi sacrificing herself and covering up Cody to eat a top rope elbow from Nick. Seeing Cody eventually recover and get the best of Nick in a reversal sequence for the win and championship with an emotional celebration was a powerful moment I will never forget.
Other quick thoughts on the rest of the card was the women had a killer four way match, which unfortunately had a mistimed finish, but otherwise had a ton of great action. As a big Arrow fan I was incredibly stoked to see Stephen Amell go hold-for-hold with Christopher Daniels. The match lasted longer than I thought, and even though Amell looked wiped by the end, he was still capable of delivering several moves I never would have thought possible from someone in only their third-ever match. Adam Page and Janela had a bout filled with all kinds of fun inventive spots, and the Joey Ryan post match tomfoolery will be something talked about for years to come. Props to Don Callis’s ‘phalanx of phalluses’ call being the line of the night.
I absolutely ate up Jay Lethal/Flip Gordon paying homage to Randy Savage’s Wrestlemania matches with Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior. Omega and Pentagon had a ton of highspots and eventually settled into a high-caliber match, and I was popping like the rest of the crowd for Chris Jeriho’s surprise post-match attack! Okada and Scurll had my second favorite match of the night behind Cody/Aldis with tons of epic near-falls and RAAAAAINMAKERs that got me and the crowd popping like crazy before Okada did two in a row for the win. The headlining six-man tag with Young Bucks & Ibushi against Mysterio/Badido/Fenix was light-out from start-to-finish because it came to light afterwards a couple matches went long earlier and the six had to cruise through the match and barely got the finish in time where the Bucks pinned Badido after their signature Meltzer Driver about 20 seconds before All In went off the air.
All In will go down as a truly special night for wrestling. It was a much-needed change-up from the standard PPV fare from WWE. The last time I felt this way with a PPV as a whole was for the first ECW One Night Stand. My hat is off for Cody and The Young Bucks putting together this stellar card that collected top acts from RoH, Impact, New Japan, CMLL and other promotions to capitalize on the hot indie-scene of wrestling from the past couple of years. If you only watch WWE programming and always wanted to try something different, but have no idea where to start on wanting to watch just one other show from the countless other promotions out there, then go out of your way now to make All In that one show.
Past Wrestling Blogs
Best of WCW Clash of Champions
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
DDP: Positively Living
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
The Kliq Rules
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History
Owen: Hart of Gold
RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Sting: Into the Light
Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz
Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
TNA Lockdown 2005-2016
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
True Giants
Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns
Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe
War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28-Present
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money
Wrestlings Greatest Factions
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017
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