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Post by Kriss on Mar 3, 2023 16:21:10 GMT
The first episode of Tony Khan's ROH television aired last night. It's exactly what you expect. It's filmed in the same studio as AEW Dark. It looks exactly like AEW Dark. They have the ROH commentary team of Ian Riccaboni & Caprice Coleman with Bobby Cruise doing the ring announcing. Lexi Nair does the backstage interviews. The in-ring is heavily focussed on long, technical matches, though. Every match was competitive, and if technical wrestling is your thing, this was a good show. If you already watch a lot of wrestling in a week, you might struggle to add this show in, since it's a full, commercial-free, two hours and six minutes. This should be exactly what someone paying for Honor Club wants, though, so you can't complain about that. In terms of who was on the show, every featured wrestler will be familiar to anyone who watches AEW Dark or Elevation, with the exception of Zack Sabre Jr., making his Tony Khan wrestling universe debut, but if thios show interests you in any way, then you will know all about him. 10 matches in all. The best two were Konosuke Takeshita vs Josh Woods and Claudio Castagnoli vs AR Fox, closely followed by ZSJ vs Blake Christian, and <ark Brisco vs Slim J was a decent match to open the new show. I didn't really need to see Ari Daivari getting a push, but I guess the Trustbuster gimmick is still going as Daivari plays Tony Khan's avatar. There were a couple of short women's matches and a couple of shorter Squash-esque matches thrown in too. Basically, this show will please anyone who likes the more technical ROH style, but if WWE-style sports entertainment is more your style, you might not get much out of this show. |
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Post by srossi on Mar 3, 2023 17:10:16 GMT
AEW barely promoted this, and "barely" is generous. I heard a lot online about the tapings, but Dynamite threw it on screen for 5 seconds like it was an on-sale date for a live event, and that was it.
Where can this be seen other than being an Honor Club member? I haven't looked into it at all.
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Post by Kriss on Mar 3, 2023 18:06:03 GMT
It's on watchwrestling
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Post by srossi on Mar 3, 2023 18:32:27 GMT
Ah OK, so there is no other way to watch it. I'm not sure what they hope to accomplish by making this a pay show at this point. I'm sure they could've gotten back on Fite TV easily enough. |
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Post by srossi on Mar 4, 2023 20:08:13 GMT
Finished the first episode, and like most things AEW it's filled with great wrestling that all blends into each other because the show is too long. 2 hours 6 minutes of mostly wall-to-wall wrestling with a couple of short promos and no angles. They really need to develop their own characters here and start some feuds that people care about, but beyond setting up some matches for next week, not even a thought was put into any long-term booking. Just match, match, match. This is not dissimilar to how the old ROH was the last few years, but ROH at its best had character development, feuds, and angles. We need to get back there. The good matches are the easy part, they’re a given. It’s the first episode of the re-boot and there’s a PPV in less than a month that they could’ve built to. Interest will never be higher and it will never be more critical to kick things off hot than right now, and they did next to nothing that was interesting to people who don’t already watch Dark. I will be incredibly disappointed if ROH turns into a 3rd AEW C show.
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Post by Kriss on Mar 4, 2023 20:45:58 GMT
Finished the first episode, and like most things AEW it's filled with great wrestling that all blends into each other because the show is too long. 2 hours 6 minutes of mostly wall-to-wall wrestling with a couple of short promos and no angles. They really need to develop their own characters here and start some feuds that people care about, but beyond setting up some matches for next week, not even a thought was put into any long-term booking. Just match, match, match. This is not dissimilar to how the old ROH was the last few years, but ROH at its best had character development, feuds, and angles. We need to get back there. The good matches are the easy part, they’re a given. It’s the first episode of the re-boot and there’s a PPV in less than a month that they could’ve built to. Interest will never be higher and it will never be more critical to kick things off hot than right now, and they did next to nothing that was interesting to people who don’t already watch Dark. I will be incredibly disappointed if ROH turns into a 3rd AEW C show. Well, they did an angle to set up Claudio vs Eddie Kingston for the title at the next PPV. They also continued the incredibly slow burn to ZSJ vs Bryan Danielson. I hope that match is on the ROH PPV, and maybe the story will be Danielson "going home" after losing MJF. But whoever okayed that Tony Deppen reading his promo gimmick should be fired, because it just came off like he legit can't do a promo without reading it. |
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Post by srossi on Mar 4, 2023 20:53:49 GMT
Finished the first episode, and like most things AEW it's filled with great wrestling that all blends into each other because the show is too long. 2 hours 6 minutes of mostly wall-to-wall wrestling with a couple of short promos and no angles. They really need to develop their own characters here and start some feuds that people care about, but beyond setting up some matches for next week, not even a thought was put into any long-term booking. Just match, match, match. This is not dissimilar to how the old ROH was the last few years, but ROH at its best had character development, feuds, and angles. We need to get back there. The good matches are the easy part, they’re a given. It’s the first episode of the re-boot and there’s a PPV in less than a month that they could’ve built to. Interest will never be higher and it will never be more critical to kick things off hot than right now, and they did next to nothing that was interesting to people who don’t already watch Dark. I will be incredibly disappointed if ROH turns into a 3rd AEW C show. Well, they did an angle to set up Claudio vs Eddie Kingston for the title at the next PPV. They also continued the incredibly slow burn to ZSJ vs Bryan Danielson. I hope that match is on the ROH PPV, and maybe the story will be Danielson "going home" after losing MJF. But whoever okayed that Tony Deppen reading his promo gimmick should be fired, because it just came off like he legit can't do a promo without reading it. Kingston-Castagnoli and Danielson-ZSJ are continuation of AEW angles that are barely angles, weren't going anywhere, and seemed forgotten. AEW did some real slow burn angles at the beginning that were quite good, but there's a difference between that and whatever this stuff is. They had more than 2 hours to make me care about ANYONE on the actual ROH roster, and didn't even try. You won't get everyone over in one show, but pick a guy. A.R. Fox was in the main event against Castagnoli for some reason. OK, pick him. Why is this AEW jobber getting a title shot? Who is he? Why should I care? Take one fucking guy and give me a reason to care. Does Tony Khan really want us all sitting around still talking about that one match he had with Swerve Strickland in Lucha Underground? How many years ago was that in a promotion 5 people watched? There's got to be something newer to do with him. |
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Post by Kriss on Mar 10, 2023 17:00:33 GMT
I enjoyed last night's ROH again, but I have no problem watching a two hour show of good wrestling. If you wanted angles, there were even fewer interviews than last week, although they are doing enough to build to a card for the PPV. They started something between Mark Briscoe vs Samoa Joe which was probably the most noteworthy thing story-wise. Athena vs Willow Nightingale was an excellent main event. Not sure why they had Serpentico pull double duty. He used to do it on the mammoth Dark tapings at Daily's Place, wrestling as Serpentico and unmasked as Jon Cruz. Last night he was squash fodder for Eddie Kingston working unmasked as "Ben Dejo"... okay. I was surprised that they had Trish Adora go over Billie Starkz because I thought they were trying to do something with Starkz since she's been featured quite heavily on Dark recently, even if she's never won. I was surprised to see Rush & Dralistico on the show, and have a competitive match with Serpentico & Angelico, but I think the reason for that will be revealed on Rampage tonight (trying to keep this thread as spoiler-free as possible).
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Post by srossi on Mar 11, 2023 17:16:57 GMT
I’m starting Episode 2 now but I’m really disappointed that every show is 2 hours now. It’s too much. TK needs to learn that less is more.
And then Mark Briscoe announces plans for the ROH Tag titles on Rampage instead of ROH TV, so I already feel like nothing of import will happen that I can’t catch up on by watching AEW. Separate the brands!
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Post by OneFanGang on Mar 11, 2023 17:41:47 GMT
WTF another ladder match? Maybe this time if two guys are near the top they'll have to shake hands before duking it out. The Briscoe tie-in gives it a cool name but the concept paints Mark as the one who decides the lineage going forward. Tony's columns and rows of booking plans is Chutes and Ladders now.
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Post by srossi on Mar 11, 2023 17:57:57 GMT
A few matches in. Samoa Joe beats Tony Deppen easily, continuing the trend of AEW/ROH guys decimating the Sinclair ROH roster. Mark Briscoe challenges Joe for the TV title but doesn’t address the Tag titles. Dalton Castle and The Boys squash 3 jobbers. Rush and Dralistico beat the Dark outcasts Spanish Announce Project in a match that wasn’t very competitive. Trish Adora beat Billie Starkz in a match i fast forwarded through because I can’t invest in 2 new indy women and I knew who would win anyway. I feel like I’ve wasted 45 minutes of my life. Again, no angles or any reason to care about these people.
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Post by srossi on Mar 11, 2023 19:22:49 GMT
The Trustbusters, who are instant channel-changers, squashed indy vets Jake Crist and Jake Manning doing his Man Scout gimmick. Crist had something going in the business until his brother was exiled from the business during the #SpeakingOut thing, and now he's losing in 2 minutes to jobbers. I don't get while Dark lets indy guys have long, competitive matches but here in ROH, everything is a quick squash even when some of the unsigned guys are clearly better than the signed ones. The show finally picked up and got better with a competitive match where Aussie Open beat Rhett Titus and Tracy Williams, but again the ROH Sinclair guys lost and you never got the sense that they could win. Wheeler Yuta fully turned heel in ROH to sync with the AEW angle by throwing a closed fist to beat Timothy Thatcher in a Pure title match in by far the best actual wrestling of the show. Eddie Kingston won a 30-second squash over Ben Dejo, a funny jobber name for Serpentico without a mask, because God knows that needed to be on the show. This was just to set up Claudio Castagnoli coming out to say that "A man with no honor will never be ROH champion" and Kingston freaked out and chased him around the back. Main event was Athena successfully defending the ROH Women's title against Willow Nightengale in a good, physical match. I don't know if Athena is really good at what she does or has just become dangerous in the ring, but man, some of her stuff seems brutal and unsafe. It was a better match than it had any right to be though.
I'll read Kriss' review now, which I'm sure is more generous than mine.
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Post by Kriss on Mar 18, 2023 12:47:09 GMT
A step down in in-ring quality this week with no outstanding match, but they did build to some future matches at the upcoming PPV. I'd call them challenges rather than angles, but it gave a reason to keep on watching. Still too much of the Trustbusters with two matches and an interview, although any Trustbusters is too much.
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Post by srossi on Mar 18, 2023 15:06:12 GMT
A step down in in-ring quality this week with no outstanding match, but they did build to some future matches at the upcoming PPV. I'd call them challenges rather than angles, but it gave a reason to keep on watching. Still too much of the Trustbusters with two matches and an interview, although any Trustbusters is too much. I’m halfway through the show but I’ve given up that this will be anything other than another Dark. I could also compare it to Velocity, which featured some excellent matches between signed talents and unsigned indy stars who were allowed offense. Somehow, I feel like even WWE did that better 20 years ago than AEW is doing it now. Some guys with indy cred are just being demolished. A competitive match like Castagnoli vs. Willie Mack still doesn’t deliver the way it probably would in a high school gym. I just am failing to understand why TK bought this and what he will do with it long-term if this is the best he can do 2 weeks before an ROH PPV at WM weekend. A random show in mid-August will feel about as important as a Pirates-Nationals game on the same date. What a waste of a once-great company. |
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Post by Kriss on Mar 24, 2023 13:05:25 GMT
Vikingo vs Komander for the AAA Mega Title has been announced for Supercard of Honor.
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