Welcome to another addition of me rambling on about pro wrestling in a completely inane fashion. This time I’m going to look back at the exciting ROH-NJPW Supershows (of which I’ve only seen one so far) and where ROH should look to in the future.
ROH has had a pretty stellar 2015 so far. The World
Championship division has been somewhat stagnant but has been saved by the
other parts of the card as well as the surprise returns and debuts we’ve seen.
All in all ROH seems in a very good position right now, producing very
compelling television on a weekly basis. Their production values seem to have
gone through the roof too (horrendously bad looking Supercard of Honor show
aside) and the whole company seems to be on the up.
On June the nineteenth they return to pay-per-view with
their annual Best in the World show. A show which, despite having only debuted
in 2011, has quickly become ROH’s second biggest event in any given year. This
year looks set to be no different with a mammoth main event scheduled (spoilers
ahead if you haven’t seen the results from the latest set of TV tapings). But
we’ll get to that in due course.
ROH’s partnership with New Japan seems to be going strong
and on the back of two excellent shows
last year they followed up with four collaborative efforts this time round
(albeit the fourth of which was merely a TV taping). War of the Worlds last
year was one of ROH’s best shows of the year and this year they more than met
expectations.
The talent ROH and New Japan had agreed to use looked pretty
good on paper but something about the Global Wars iPPV card just didn’t sit
right with me. It looked like a very average show but being a ROH/New Japan
show I decided to go ahead and watch it anyway. The show delivered in spades.
Every match, aside from a pretty weak Tanahashi/Elgin match, was at worst mildly entertaining and at best mind-blowingly brilliant. A match-up between Cedric Alexander and Kazuchika Okada pitted two guys raved about (to different extents) by their personal company’s fanbase that I’ve never really understood the hype for but they absolutely tore the house down with a great showing.
ACH and Shinsuke Nakamura had a very good match too although
not as good as I had personally hoped given the talents of both men and the
fact that the latter is, in my opinion, the best wrestler on the planet right
now. Jay Lethal continued his streak of great matches with another against a
man who seems, to me at least, unfairly marginalised by the New Japan crowd in
Tetsuya Naito.
The match of the night without doubt though had to go to the
main event. It was a match that Jim Cornette would have absolutely loathed but
I loved it. I like a little bit of everything in my wrestling and I love a good
technical classic (i.e. Steamboat/Savage) or a match of brute force where two
guys just destroy each other (i.e. Danielson/Strong). Hardcore, big man matches
etc. almost everything has its place – and so does a good spotfest.
Make no mistake that is exactly what this main event was. A
10-Man Tag that saw the Bullet Club taking on the ROH All-Stars and it was
glorious. Superkick’s, plancha’s and finisher’s galore. It was phenomenal to
watch and a really good way to top off an all-around excellent show. The best
thing that happened on the whole show though was what happened after the main
event. After Mark Briscoe had pinned Nick Jackson a certain ROH World
Television Champion came out and laid out both ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe
and IWGP Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles.
This man, Jay Lethal, has completely transformed my opinion
of him in little over a year. I’ve never rated Lethal and honestly when he won
the Television Championship off Tomasso Ciampa at last year’s WrestleMania
weekend show a part of me groaned. Another part of me was intrigued by what a
partnership with arguably the greatest manager not named Paul Heyman in
professional wrestling today (Truth Martini) could do to rejuvenate his
character.
Lethal, since returning to ROH in 2011, had been nothing but
a very bland babyface and the act had more than worn thin. Lethal turning heel
at least gave him a chance to start over in my eyes and boy has he done that.
He has been one of the most consistently entertaining performers in ROH in the
past twelve months and it has got to the point where I will be absolutely
ecstatic if he wins his Title versus Title match with Jay Briscoe at Best in
the World.
ROH absolutely should pull the trigger on Lethal right now,
he is on the cusp of breaking through in the same way Adam Cole did when they
put the Championship on him. However, as much as ROH pulled the trigger on Cole
at the right time they have previous for failing to capitalise. Names such as
Nigel McGuinness and Tyler Black spring to mind, with Tyler the more prominent
of the two. Black was over enough to win the title eons before he did to the
point of, when he did, the crowds just didn’t care anymore.
ROH can’t afford to do this with Lethal, he is ready and
putting the Championship on him could spark a bit of life into the division
that has been kind of messy for lack of a better word since Michael Elgin’s
issues of last summer.
The problem I have with it is the Television Championship
has become an excellent secondary title in recent years and I really don’t want
to lose it. I get why they’re doing what is essentially a unification match
because it makes the match even more attractive but they have to execute it in
such a way that allows the Television Championship to remain active without
tarnishing it forever by having Lethal merely discard it once he’s won the
actually important Championship.
It’s a fine balance but presents ROH with an opportunity. If
they can somehow word it whereby (much like with Austin Aries and Hulk Hogan in
TNA a few years ago) ROH Matchmaker Nigel McGuinness decides that he can’t have
one man holding both the singles Championships and forces Lethal to vacate the
belt then that would be great.
What they should follow up on that with is a tournament for
the vacant Championship. It adds prestige to the title to see multiple guys
fighting over it and tournaments always give you the chance to put an up and
comer over. For example how huge would it be if Adam Page were to eliminate a
stalwart like Roderick Strong or even Adam Cole (although logistically that may
difficult since Cole seems to be remaining heel for the time being) in a match.
The tournament finals seem to be a no-brainer to me. Fresh
off finishing off their feud with the KRD over the Tag Team Championships
(perhaps with a bit of miscommunication during their loss to them in the two
teams’ final encounter) it should be Bobby Fish facing Kyle O’Reilly.
Personally I’d have Fish weasel his way to a win over O’Reilly
and start a brutal feud between the two friends and partners based on Fish’s
jealousy of how O’Reilly was always seen as the star of the team. The feud just
seems to write itself.
So, overall thoughts – ROH is in a good position right now
and I hope that continues for many moons to come and they should really put the
World Championship on Jay Lethal and have Bobby Fish beat Kyle O’Reilly in the
finals of the tournament for the vacant Television Championship. I can only
hope I’m right.
Thanks for reading, I’m sure I’ll be back with another “Quick
Thoughts”/thesis sooner rather than later but until then you can follow me on
twitter @watadam20 and I’ll see you again soon hopefully.
P.S. Adam Cole is back, and the world should rejoice…….
BAYBAY!
No comments:
Post a Comment