That's right, wrestling fans. You are NOT mistaken. This is FULL iPPV coverage on a Ring of Honor event. I didn't get to see the event over the weekend live, so I spent the last evening watching the replay online. I REALLY hate how next to NO ONE has photos of this event online. C'mon Sinclair Broadcasting, you guys need to be selling your product to people better than this! These guys deserve SOOO much better for the piss poor production work you guys give them, geez.


Note: I don't know if fans ran into this issue during the live stream, but the audio was off sync (ahead about 10-20 seconds fast) for most of the event for me.

Truth Martini announces that ACH isn't in Toronto (apparently due to legit travel issues); Cedric Alexander comes out to ask for a TV title shot.  Jay Lethal said he doesn't deserve one; they brawl.

The whole point of this opening segment was to rearrange the card since both ACH and Silas Young are either no-shows or injured. Plus Seleziya Sparx gets super kicked by Jay Lethal on accident after Cedric Alexander moved out of the way at the last second.

Mark Briscoe def. Hanson via pinfall following a Froggy Bow

If you saw the War Machine vs. The Briscoes match from the 8/30/14 TV tapings, then you already saw most of the drama leading into this match. Sadly, the match itself leaves a lot to be desired but it's a far cry from a bad match. I personally would have opened with the Four Corners Tag Team Match instead of this.

I was more glad to see Hanson get a chance to shine here as he really stood out to me as part of the Young Prospect Tournament earlier this year. 

Tommaso Chiampa comes out to apologize for attacking Bobby Cruse, but ends up with his mic cut when Nigel McGuinness asks him to leave

Okay... That was awkward.

Moving on...

Four Corners Tag Team Match - Moose & R.D. Evans (w/ Veda Scott & Ramon) def. Ethan Gabriel Owens & Josh Alexander and Adam Page & BJ Whitmer and Caprice Coleman & Watanabe via pinfall when Evans rolled up Owens #NewStreak

I was hoping that Veda Scott would cut a promo to hype up her two clients going into this match, but I was already pumped from Moose's awesome entrance theme. I marked a bit more later that evening when Moose favorited and retweeted me.


Even though I'm not familiar with roughly everyone in this match in terms of acting like a tag team, except for Caprice Coleman and Watanabe who had a tag match against The Decade on the 9/6/14 TV taping, it was pleasure to see all of these guys in competition. 

WWE, take notes. THIS is how you build up your tag team division - with not one, not two, but THREE great tag team bouts on this card. 


The finish here was just freakin' INSANE. I know Owens was pissed when Evans stole the win from him to continue the #NewStreak. (Laughs) I know Veda Scott has to be lying or over-exaggerating Evans' streak, because there's no way in hell I believe that fool has 150 wins. 


The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) def. The Decade's Roderick Strong & Jimmy Jacobs via pinfall (Daniels on Strong)

You shouldn't expect anything less from these guys, but they put on a wrestling clinic. I'll be honest and say that Jimmy Jacobs isn't one of my favorite guys (especially in his post-SCUM and Age of the Fall career...) but he pulled his weight in this match. Daniels and Kaz walked away from this match looking like a million bucks while The Decade continues to fail to pick up any momentum. I don't see how ANYONE is still taking that stable seriously. Outside of BJ Whitmer and Roderick Strong, the rest of the group is struggling to either stay relevant or stay glued together.

Ironic that The Decade's mission is to eliminate former talent who return to ROH after venturing out to "greener pastures" (i.e. WWE, NXT, TNA, etc.) that they got royally spanked by Kaz and Daniels tonight while Strong got beat pretty bad by AJ Styles a few months ago. 

AJ Styles def. Adam Cole via pinfall with a top rope Bloody Sunday

Great match from start to finish, but if I were nit-picky about this match, it's not as good as Styles' bouts against Michael Elgin, Jay Lethal, Cedric Alexander, and Roderick Strong. This loss puts Adam Cole into a deeper hole he has to dig himself out of after losing the ROH World Championship, but at least he's maintaining that massive amount of heat he had as champion. Spitting in AJ Styles' hand after disrespecting the Code of Honor help escalate that further.


I have to wonder if ROH is still going to consider giving AJ Styles a future World Championship title shot? A New Japan vs. ROH World Champion match would be pure money... just sayin'. 

Maria Kanellis says that Matt Hardy is returning to ROH, and has rechristened the ICON title the "title of love".  She and Michael Bennett are going to consumate the title in the ring, but Mark Briscoe chases them off.

A nice throwback to the Attitude Era in terms of "racy" or "suggestive" segments. I'm sure Edge and Lita would be proud. Steve Corino channels his inner Jerry "The King" Lawler as he tries to take pictures with his cell phone.

I'm surprised to hear that Matt Hardy is returning to ROH, especially given his real life beef with the Young Bucks and ROH in general as of late. I guess he's bailing after TNA wraps up the NYC tapings. Oh well, the Hardy reunion was fun while it lasted. 

Jay Lethal def. ACH Cedric Alexander via pinfall following a Lethal Injection (and Matt Taven's finisher) to retain his ROH World TV Title

Much like Lethal's bout against ACH on ROH's TV tapings earlier this month (notably the 8/30/14 TV taping), this match is all about putting over the new rising stars of ROH. Unfortunately, the House of Truth's bag of tricks are endless as Seleziya came back to aid Lethal to get a cheap win.

I'm pretty sure if anyone is going to dethrone Lethal it's going to be due to some interference from Matt Taven - IF he ever decides to come back to ROH. Alternatively, I wouldn't be mad that ACH won it next, especially after him and Lethal's epic draw that resulted on the 8/30/14 taping. 

Jay Briscoe def. Michael Elgin via pinfall following a Jay Driller to become the NEW ROH World Champion


First things first, the match itself was great. I don't have a problem with it. It just thought it was strange to take the strap off Elgin this early after ROH invested so much time in building him up to this level.

As for the finish here, Elgin looked shocked as everyone else in attendance. What I'm trying to understand is how did Jay Briscoe get a title match when Adam Cole didn't even get a "proper" rematch in an one-on-one contest. From the way they were acting on the ROH TV tapings, Elgin was willing to give Cedric Alexander another shot at the title, despite his "heel-like" methods to retain it.

There's a lot of theories going around on why ROH took the strap off Elgin, including Elgin's open statement about wanting to try his hand at Major League Baseball next year in a recent interview, but the truth of the matter is that Elgin was having issues getting his work visa renewed and ROH couldn't have their World Champion not on their programming for a span of roughly 90 days. Final Battle (AKA ROH's version of WrestleMania) is around the corner, so ROH couldn't deal with vacating their title for the third year in a row before their biggest event of the year.

I'm not mad that Jay Briscoe is the second two-time ROH World Champion in history. I'm just disappointed that ROH did this as a knee-jerk reaction to fill the void at the last second. If ROH built this up with a solid program beforehand it would have added more drama to this match that was obviously missing here. I don't know about anyone else, but it just seemed like another "throwaway" title match.

If there's one thing I can't stand about ROH's storytelling, it's how they start one angle on their weekly TV tapings or on iPPVs but don't continue it for weeks or sometimes months in advance. I have been watching ROH's programming regularly again since the end of 2013 and the way they do this with their feuds/storylines makes me want to choke them at times. If their superb match quality didn't overshadow that, I wouldn't be faithfully watching their product. If ROH wants to be taken seriously by the mainstream wrestling community they are going to have to at least give some shred of what's going to keep people interested. Otherwise, whatever fans ROH draws away from WWE and TNA are going to right back to Vince and Dixie for their fill of wrestling.


Following this match, a video package is shown to advertise the return of Matt Sydal (WWE's Evan Bourne) to Ring of Honor on Saturday, September 27 in Wheeling, WV.

reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly) def. The Young Bucks (Nick & Matt Jackson) 2 falls to 1 to retain their ROH World Tag Team Championship

TONS of Super Kicks in this match. (Laughs) You're going to be sick of hearing commentary screaming about it by the end of this. TONS of insane spots in this match too. Love or hate them, but good Lord, the Young Bucks are the next generation Hardy Boyz. You can call them spot monkeys if you want, but this was the perfect match to end tonight's broadcast with. I was surprised to see reDRagon retain here as they continue to impress me as the reigning ROH tag team champions, despite their close calls here against the Bucks and back in June against The Addiction. I would love to see reDRagon defend the titles against the Young Bucks and The Addition in a triple threat match.

Ciampa returns and destroys the Bucks as they were celebrating with the crowd, and the ring, to the end the show

Watch for how Ciampa loses one of his flip-flops before he beats the shit out of the Bucks, ending the show with an inverted Tower of London to the Bucks on the exposed canvas. That was obviously a message to Nigel McGuinness. I wonder what the fallout is going to be after this event? Lots of strange and unexpected occurrences. 
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