Ring of Honor: Final Battle (2017) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by Ring of Honor (ROH). It took place on December 15, 2017, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, New York.
Since I'm reviewing this at least a month after the fact after Wrestle Kingdom 12 has come and gone, I'm going to be pretty short and sweet on these results as the big title changes are already out in the open.
I thought that the opener between The Kingdom's Matt Taven and Will Ospreay was pretty solid. I still think that The Kingdom's new music that they debuted last year rocks and takes them up a notch collectively. Taven was set to be a star before his injuries sidelined him back when he won the TV title a few years ago, but I'm glad he's getting the chance to shine now on his own in a sense instead of being the 3rd man in Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis' shadows. Ospreay is one of those guys who does a lot of "flippy shit" as Jim Cornette would say but I can tell that he has the right guys mentoring him or feeding him knowledge as the guy can easily transition to spots (that make sense instead just doing flips to do flips) and working smart within the ring. I loved the finish here that saw Taven counter the OsCutter into what looked like EC3's One Percenter (Snapmare Driver?) for the win.
War Machine def. The Addiction in a match that I honestly didn't really care for. While I like all of the guys involved here but I just couldn't help but feel that something was missing here. Besides aren't War Machine on their way out the door? Seemed odd to see them win here but job out like it was nothing on WK12. Then again, this show was a few weeks out from that event and I watching this in retrospect, but whatever.
Motor City Machineguns def. The Best Friends to retain the ROH Tag Titles in a match I honestly would say was the worst thing on this show just from the finish alone. The Best Friends spike Sabin into a Piledriver, who no sells it into a Jacknife pin for the win. I watched that spot at least 3-5 times and still didn't understand that.
Lethal vs. Marty Scurll had to be my favorite match of the show just from the double Eddie Guerrero chair fake-out spot. Both of these guys have great natural chemistry with each other with the match. The narrative here was that Marty was trying to bring out the "villain" in Lethal, but that merely spelled out doom for Marty in the end as Lethal took the win after a low blow that allowed him to hit the Lethal Injection.
Silas Young pulled off the upset of the evening winning the TV title in that 4-Way elimination match. Shane Taylor (who has slimmed down a lot from the last few times I've seen him work matches on ROH TV a few months ago) went out first, Kenny King (the champion going into this match who even impressed me with some of his matches during this reign) out second after Silas broke a beer bottle over the back of his head, and Punishment Martinez (who I jokingly said to myself while watching that he is everything that WWE wishes Baron Corbin would be) was eliminated last by Silas. Definitely one of the better matches on this card, especially from the first few opening moments of the match. I thought Punishment Martinez was pretty bland when they first introduced him but he's definitely impressed me with his performance here.
Dem Boys (The Briscoes) def. Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer in a Street Fight. To say that this whole storyline/feud stemmed from Ray's possible head injury/concussion(s), there sure were a LOT of shots to the head in this match to the point is was in really bad taste. We all know the trauma to the head isn't anything to play around with but this match went out of their way to barrage in a lot of them for Christ's sake. To be honest, I was completely fine with the Briscoes picking up the win here.
ROH presents the Women of Honor (WOH) Championship and announces a tournament to crown it's first champion. About F'N time I say. Took them long enough to do this to say that their women's division has been around for a good while now since it's "revival", just that it's been limited to being mostly shown off on their YouTube channel weekly. TBH I wouldn't be surprised if either Mandy Leon or Kelly Klein picks it up first in terms of mainstays who have stuck around this long.
Hung Bucks (Young Bucks & Adam "Hangman" Page) def. Flip Gordon and two guys from CMLL was another fun match. This was my first time seeing one of Flip's matches and I'm thoroughly impressed with his work. I can see why he's on a lot of the "who to watch in 2018" in ROH lists. Dragon Lee's performance wasn't a surprise here as I've seen him work earlier this past year in the hunt for the TV title. Flip's team got some nice spots in but there wasn't any doubt in my mind that the Bucks weren't walking away as the winners. It just seemed like they were jobbing Flip's team out with the DOUBLE Indytaker on them for the win. Made them look like a group of collective jobbers to me off that. Don't ask me who was the third man for Flip Gordon's team as I didn't catch that for the duration of that match.
Main Event: Cody Rhodes w/ Brandi Rhodes defending his World Title against Dalton Castle. This was the first appearance Cody's new look with the blonde/white hair and sporting that ring that he has Brandi kissing all the time. I spoiled the finish to this match for myself by watching WK12 first, so I knew he was losing the title here, but I still thought that this was a match worth watching. Not as great as everything else on this card, but a fine way to close out the show. Maybe it was just me or did the crowd didn't seem too passionate about Castle's win here? I dunno maybe it was different live in the arena.
Overall, this was your run of the mill ROH card (with more time of course), but I'm glad I didn't drop PPV money to watch this live despite the solid performances up and down the card. I don't want to bury the show, but it just seemed like your run of the mill ROH card, just with a lot more time for matches than they typically do for their weekly broadcast.
I thought that the opener between The Kingdom's Matt Taven and Will Ospreay was pretty solid. I still think that The Kingdom's new music that they debuted last year rocks and takes them up a notch collectively. Taven was set to be a star before his injuries sidelined him back when he won the TV title a few years ago, but I'm glad he's getting the chance to shine now on his own in a sense instead of being the 3rd man in Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis' shadows. Ospreay is one of those guys who does a lot of "flippy shit" as Jim Cornette would say but I can tell that he has the right guys mentoring him or feeding him knowledge as the guy can easily transition to spots (that make sense instead just doing flips to do flips) and working smart within the ring. I loved the finish here that saw Taven counter the OsCutter into what looked like EC3's One Percenter (Snapmare Driver?) for the win.
War Machine def. The Addiction in a match that I honestly didn't really care for. While I like all of the guys involved here but I just couldn't help but feel that something was missing here. Besides aren't War Machine on their way out the door? Seemed odd to see them win here but job out like it was nothing on WK12. Then again, this show was a few weeks out from that event and I watching this in retrospect, but whatever.
Motor City Machineguns def. The Best Friends to retain the ROH Tag Titles in a match I honestly would say was the worst thing on this show just from the finish alone. The Best Friends spike Sabin into a Piledriver, who no sells it into a Jacknife pin for the win. I watched that spot at least 3-5 times and still didn't understand that.
Lethal vs. Marty Scurll had to be my favorite match of the show just from the double Eddie Guerrero chair fake-out spot. Both of these guys have great natural chemistry with each other with the match. The narrative here was that Marty was trying to bring out the "villain" in Lethal, but that merely spelled out doom for Marty in the end as Lethal took the win after a low blow that allowed him to hit the Lethal Injection.
Silas Young pulled off the upset of the evening winning the TV title in that 4-Way elimination match. Shane Taylor (who has slimmed down a lot from the last few times I've seen him work matches on ROH TV a few months ago) went out first, Kenny King (the champion going into this match who even impressed me with some of his matches during this reign) out second after Silas broke a beer bottle over the back of his head, and Punishment Martinez (who I jokingly said to myself while watching that he is everything that WWE wishes Baron Corbin would be) was eliminated last by Silas. Definitely one of the better matches on this card, especially from the first few opening moments of the match. I thought Punishment Martinez was pretty bland when they first introduced him but he's definitely impressed me with his performance here.
Dem Boys (The Briscoes) def. Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer in a Street Fight. To say that this whole storyline/feud stemmed from Ray's possible head injury/concussion(s), there sure were a LOT of shots to the head in this match to the point is was in really bad taste. We all know the trauma to the head isn't anything to play around with but this match went out of their way to barrage in a lot of them for Christ's sake. To be honest, I was completely fine with the Briscoes picking up the win here.
ROH presents the Women of Honor (WOH) Championship and announces a tournament to crown it's first champion. About F'N time I say. Took them long enough to do this to say that their women's division has been around for a good while now since it's "revival", just that it's been limited to being mostly shown off on their YouTube channel weekly. TBH I wouldn't be surprised if either Mandy Leon or Kelly Klein picks it up first in terms of mainstays who have stuck around this long.
Hung Bucks (Young Bucks & Adam "Hangman" Page) def. Flip Gordon and two guys from CMLL was another fun match. This was my first time seeing one of Flip's matches and I'm thoroughly impressed with his work. I can see why he's on a lot of the "who to watch in 2018" in ROH lists. Dragon Lee's performance wasn't a surprise here as I've seen him work earlier this past year in the hunt for the TV title. Flip's team got some nice spots in but there wasn't any doubt in my mind that the Bucks weren't walking away as the winners. It just seemed like they were jobbing Flip's team out with the DOUBLE Indytaker on them for the win. Made them look like a group of collective jobbers to me off that. Don't ask me who was the third man for Flip Gordon's team as I didn't catch that for the duration of that match.
Main Event: Cody Rhodes w/ Brandi Rhodes defending his World Title against Dalton Castle. This was the first appearance Cody's new look with the blonde/white hair and sporting that ring that he has Brandi kissing all the time. I spoiled the finish to this match for myself by watching WK12 first, so I knew he was losing the title here, but I still thought that this was a match worth watching. Not as great as everything else on this card, but a fine way to close out the show. Maybe it was just me or did the crowd didn't seem too passionate about Castle's win here? I dunno maybe it was different live in the arena.
Overall, this was your run of the mill ROH card (with more time of course), but I'm glad I didn't drop PPV money to watch this live despite the solid performances up and down the card. I don't want to bury the show, but it just seemed like your run of the mill ROH card, just with a lot more time for matches than they typically do for their weekly broadcast.
