BEST IN THE WORLD

June 22, 2014

Cedric Alexander . . . once again finds himself across the ring from a former ROH Champion.

Matt Hardy . . . shows that he really is stronger than death, by taking some huge bumps in a tag match, and still running in on the main event.

Michael Elgin . . . wins the ROH World Title, but instead of stepping up, he only showed up.

ACH vs. BJ WHITMER vs. CAPRICE COLEMAN vs. TADARIUS THOMAS vs. TOMMASO CIAMPA vs. TAKAAKI WATANABE (#1 Contender’s Match for the ROH Television Title)

For a show that’s supposed to showcase the “best in the world” it sure isn’t starting out that way. This isn’t horrible or anything, but, it’s just your average multi man match, where everyone does their stuff and gets out of the way, rather than trying to tell a story. Some of the exchanges are nice, the elbow exchange between Ciampa and Watanabe especially stands out, but, until the finish, nothing that happens seems especially important. Hell, Ciampa hits his finisher twice in a row, and it doesn’t matter in the least. ACH hits a huge dive onto everyone and quickly hits the 450 on Thomas for the win, and to shows who exactly is the better member of their team, but, there was no real sign or warning that the finish was on it’s way.

JAY LETHAL © vs. MATT TAVEN (ROH Television Title)

Why bother having a stipulation that prevents interference from Truth Martini, when the match comes down to Taven losing because he was preoccupied with Martini anyway? Granted, Martini doesn’t actually interfere, Taven keeps trying to go after him, and it eventually leads to his undoing. The work is actually really nice from bell to bell, they work some smooth exchanges and counters, and both of them have plenty of big spots to add to the mix. Taven’s superkick to an airborne Lethal could have really looked terrible, but, it come off well, and Lethal’s counter to the headlock driver also looked really nice. The finish is smart, with Lethal hitting the Lethal Injection after Taven’s frog splash hit knees, which explains why Lethal can hit it when he tried earlier and failed. And, those playing close attention would see how obvious it was that Lethal was playing possum, given that Taven dropped him with superkick on the floor, before going after Martini, but, then Lethal was flat on his back in the middle of the ring. The work alone makes this better than the opening six-way, but, the fact that they tried to tell a story (even if I didn’t particularly care for how it played out) is a bonus. ***

RODERICK STRONG vs. CEDRIC ALEXANDER (Submission Match)

This would have been good if Strong put forth the same effort that Cedric did. The back body drop into the apron was the perfect set up for Strong to have an extended control segment, but, that winds up being the highlight of the match. Strong follows up on this huge opening with an awful camel clutch, and a backdrop suplex (which is technically sound, but, nobody thinks that a regular backdrop is going to be a match breaker). He spends the rest of the time just toying around with Cedric instead of building heat for Cedric’s comeback. Cedric isn’t great or anything, but, his performance here is well above Roddy’s. The crowd is firmly behind him, and the way he takes the fight right to Strong keeps them on his side. He shows that he’s actually trying to win the match, with spots like the DDT into guillotine choke and the Dragon sleeper. The finish comes off as somewhat of a fluke, with Cedric countering the Tiger driver into a backbreaker across the turnbuckle, but he smartly follows up with the Lumbar check, and then locks in the Stronghold and makes Roddy tap to his own finisher. It’s great to see the young gun pick up the decisive win, but, it would have come off so much better with a better build to the finish and any sort of real heat segment from Strong.

JAY BRISCOE/MARK BRISCOE vs. MATT HARDY/MICHAEL BENNETT

Before Nigel restarts this, the best thing here was Corino on commentary being a Matt Hardy cheerleader. After the restart and the decision to make it anything goes, it doesn’t really get a whole lot better, but it’s a lot more exciting, and they bring the intensity that the submission match seemed to be lacking in. The nice thing to see, that was lacking during the match the Briscoes had in March with Homicide and Kingston, is that they didn’t make any big bumps or big spots seem wasted. All four brawl all over ringside and make liberal use of the guardrail, chairs, and even a ladder, but, they save the really big stuff for the final stretch, with both Bennett and Hardy taking big table bumps to finish them off. The dog and pony show with Maria and Nick Searcy is pretty much just a stall tactic and some amusing eye candy to try to give the heels an opening to get the cheap win. But, they run out of options and the Briscoes stand tall.

KEVIN STEEN vs. SILAS YOUNG

There isn’t anything especially wrong with this, but, there also isn’t anything especially good about this. It’s nice to see them take a stab at telling a story with Steen’s head injury, and he puts it over consistently throughout the match, even after the finish, but, it winds up being more of a footnote than anything else. Silas takes several shots at Steen’s head, but, he could have used the exact same spots and sequences if Steen hadn’t had his bell rung. As nice as it was to see Steen constantly putting it over, there isn’t any moment where it seems to be hampering him at all. The work itself is fine, Steen does his stuff, Silas does his stuff, and their counters, reversals, transitions, etc. are all fine. It just needed a bigger performance from one, or both, of them to get this into the next gear.

Between the work and being the first match to really tell a story, this is easily the best match of the show so far. The story with Kazarian’s arm plays out perfectly with the arm getting singled out early on, and Kazarian’s selling is just about perfect. Kazarian never lets it leave focus, even when he pulls off something basic, he remembers to sell. The only real mark against him is that he lingers a bit too long in Kyle’s armbar before tapping out. But, it seems reasonable that he tries to hold out and thinks that Daniels can make the save, so it stands to reason that he’d try to hold out before giving up. The Flux Capacitor spot was beyond ugly, but, it worked in the vein of Kazarian being injured, and not being able to hit it cleanly.

Kazarian’s selling is the highlight of the match, however. The other three aren’t necessarily bad, but don’t put in as memorable a performance. Daniels doesn’t do much more than bring out his usual spots, and, it’s a wonder that he even tries a moonsault anymore, since not only does he never connect, but, he seems to always know that it won’t connect and lands on his feet as a result. It’s fun to watch Kyle and Bobby shark on the arm, but, they don’t do it nearly long enough, and aren’t nearly the jerks that they should have been. Until the finish where Kazarian kicks out after Chasing the Dragon and Kyle segues into the armbar, it never seems hopeless for Kazarian. It seems like Bobby thought that using the chair to injure the arm would be enough to get the fans behind the challengers, so they didn’t need to do anything else. With a couple of bigger performances, they could have made the show title seem accurate. They still stole the show, but, it’s petit larceny. ***1/4

What is this, TNA? A main event title match featuring ref bumps (although, the Young Bucks would have been jealous of the superkick that Cole leveled the ref with), and another dog and pony show of run-ins? The work itself is fine, but that’s all that it is, and “fine” just isn’t good enough for an ROH Title match. Cole and Elgin both work in some nice spots and exchanges, but, they don’t seem to be building up to anything or laying the groundwork to tell a story. The first big spot in the match is Elgin’s powerslam on the ramp, and it’s completely wasted since Cole didn’t put it over to any great extent and it didn’t lead to Elgin getting a meaningful run of offense. The closest that they come is when Cole hits the dropkick to Elgin’s knee and then works it over for a short spell, leading to Elgin collapsing when he tries to charge at Cole. But, it only lasts a few minutes, it comes far too late in the match to be effective, and they do the finish almost right afterwards, with Elgin rolling through the flipping piledriver and giving Cole a Takaiwa-style double powerbomb and then finishing him with the Elgin bomb. So, it’s safe to say that Elgin’s knee wasn’t hurt that badly. The reaction to Elgin’s win shows that there was some interest in seeing him win the title, even though he’s never done much for me. It says a lot that the nicest thing I can say about this it not as bad as Strong/Black from 2010.

Conclusion: If this is an example of ROH showcasing the best in the world, then the wrestling business is in deep trouble.