ROH/NJPW joint shows for May.

[shoe]

These cards begin tonight and they look great. If everything clicks we might have a show of the year or 2 candidate. I'm sure their will plenty of people from the board going to these shows.

 

Night 1

 

- DELIRIOUS vs. GEDO

- JAY LETHAL w/ TRUTH MARTINI vs. WATANABE

- RODERICK STRONG vs. KUSHIDA

- THE ADDICTION vs. THE KINGDOM (MICHAEL BENNETT & MATT TAVEN) vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS

- "UNBREAKABLE" MICHAEL ELGIN vs. TETSUYA NAITO

- REDRAGON (BOBBY FISH & KYLE O'REILLY) vs. JUSHIN "THUNDER" LIGER & HIROSHI TANAHASHI

- ???? vs. "THE PHENOMENAL" AJ STYLES

*MAIN EVENT*

THE BRISCOES vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA & SHINSUKE NAKAMURA

 

Night 2

 

*MAIN EVENT*

SIX MAN TAG TEAM

THE BULLET CLUB, IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION AJ STYLES & THE YOUNG BUCKS vs. THE KINGDOM, ADAM COLE & IWGP WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS MATT TAVEN, MICHAEL BENNETT W/ MARIA KANELLIS

ROH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

JAY BRISCOE vs. BOBBY FISH

FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL

ROH WORLD TELEVISION CHAMPION JAY LETHAL w/ TRUTH MARTINI vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. MARK BRISCOE vs. JUSHIN "THUNDER" LIGER

ROH WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS THE ADDICTION vs. "RAINMAKER" KAZUCHIKA OKADA & GEDO

KYLE O'REILLY vs. TETSUYA NAITO

"MR ROH" RODERICK STRONG vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI

ADAM PAGE vs. WATANABE

MICHAEL ELGIN vs. KUSHIDA

PLUS an appearance by MOOSE!

[shoe]

Night 3 which is an IPPV

 

- THE KINGDOM (Michael Bennett & Matt Taven w/Maria Kanellis) vs. MATT SYDAL & JUSHIN THUDER LIGER

- CHRIS SABIN vs. KUSHIDA

- GEDO & MOOSE w/STOKELY HATHAWAY & VEDA SCOTT vs. WATANABE & SILAS YOUNG

- ACH vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA

- THE ADDICTION vs. RPG VICE vs. THE DECADE vs. REDRAGON

- CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA

- MICHAEL ELGIN vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI

- ROH WORLD TELEVISION TITLE

JAY LETHAL w/TRUTH MARTINI vs. TETSUYA NAITO

**THE MAIN EVENT**

ROH ALL STARS (THE BRISCOES, RODERICK STRONG & WAR MACHINE)

vs.

THE BULLET CLUB (MACHINE GUN KARL ANDERSON, DOC GALLOWS, AJ STYLES & THE YOUNG BUCKS)

 

 

Night 4

 

MATCHES SIGNED

THE BULLET CLUB (AJ Styles & The Young Bucks) vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Rocky Romero & Beretta)

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. RODERICK STRONG

HIROSHI TANAHASHI & TETSUYA NAITO vs. ACH & MATT SYDAL

JUSHIN THUNDER LIGER vs. DALTON CASTLE

THE KINGDOM vs. DOC GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON

MICHAEL ELGIN vs. GEDO

KUSHIDA vs. WILL FERRARA

I got all the matches from ROH.Com and I'm sure their will be more matches added.

[shoe]

Looking at the lineups the guy positioned to me to help his standing is Strong. Like Thatcher at Wrestlemania weekend Strong here has the chance to have some killer matches. Strong is a guy I have just outside my top 5 for the year in just having good matches and performances. He's a modern day Bret Hart in the sense that he's a face in ROH, but in Evolve and PWG he's a heel.

[SomethingSavage]

Totally agreed. Roddy's been ripping shit up for well over a year now, but his 2015 performances are almost on another level. Guy's got great fire, stamina to spare, and he's proven to be tremendous in EITHER role of babyface or heel.

 

WWE commentators like to call Randy Orton the "best in the business at shifting gears." Roddy is much closer to that description in reality though.

 

Matches with Tanahashi and Nakamura just scream, "MUST SEE" to me. Maybe I'm in the minority. Maybe I'm not. But I'll definitely be waiting to see what he does in those.

[BBscout]

Roddy Strong is the shit. Cool to see him still out there while everyone else has moved on. I gotta see him vs Del Rio.

 

I dig the main events for Nights 1, 2, 3 and like Strong-Nakamura for 4 considering never having seen Nakamura and the hype he has.

 

Who does Styles face? Joe would be sweet but looks like Cole.

 

Pretty cool that ROH actually got it done for Styles-Hero, Joe-Briscoe, Strong-Del Rio.

 

To me Styles-Del Rio is the one big match they have still on the table right now, outside of Styles-Briscoe. Not at that level but they missed on a good one with Briscoe-Ciampa.

 

WWE missed the boat on Taven too.

[BBscout]

Actually Matt Hardy makes sense if Cole can't go.

[shoe]

NJPW should have ROH anouncer push NJWorld hard on these shows. Especially the new English sign up.

[van_Fair]

 

Someone watched a lot of old survivor series promos.

[shoe]

That was seriously great.

[Grimmas]

I really can't wait for these shows, for the fist time that I had tickets for ROH shows. I seriously love that Tanahashi is facing Elgin, so I can go to the bathroom and grab a snack at that point. The two wrestlers I least want to see.

 

ACH vs Nakamura and Cedric vs Okada could both be awesome and a huge multi-man tag to end the show should be a great match. The rest all looks fun at least (and Silas is on the show!). Pumped!

 

As for the second night in Toronto, well.... there is more matches to announce.

[stomperspc]

Tim and I made the trip from Baltimore for last night’s show.

 

Dark Match: J. Diesel vs. Romantic Truth

 

Was announced as Moose versus J. Diesel (which would have been heel vs. heel) but Veda Scott said something to the effect of Moose not wanting to waste his time with a match like this until he gets his deserved shot at the World title. Never been overly impressed with J. Diesel but he looked good here. Lots of good body punches and he kept it up throughout the match, also working in the fun abdominal stretch/body punch spot. Romantic Truth was sloppy at times. Not much of a match overall.

 

1. Takaaki Watanabe vs. Adam Page

 

I don’t think I’ve watched a Watanabe match last September. He sort of fell of the face of the earth there for a little bit. He’s bulked up a bit more. He’s kind of short for a heavyweight but is definitely big enough now to booked as a heavyweight in current New Japan. I’ve liked him in other matches (his match versus Chris Hero in Smash last summer was fun) but I thought this was the best I’ve seen him. He was moving around more confidently, played off the crowd, and threw some nice suplexes. He did a German Suplex on Colby Corino on the floor which felt a bit excessive but got a big pop. Page was fine in his role. Solid opening match.

 

2. KUSHIDA vs. Michael Elgin

 

Not a good match, but not necessarily bad. Elgin’s offense was aimless as usual but KUSHIDA held things together with some nice arm based offense. KUSHIDA had a couple of off moments (one Pelé kick missed by a mile) and they also did too much popping up after moves down the stretch for my tastes. Not a terrible match and fine for an Elgin performance (he is MUCH better off as a heel) but not anything worth watching. Elgin hit a brutal-looking lariat during the match.

 

3. Tetsuya Naito vs. Kyle O’Reilly

 

A lot of comedy early on form both guys, largely centering around the eye gesture thing Naito does and eye pokes. The comedy got over, at least initially. By the end, the match morphed into the Elgin/KUSHIDA match with a lot of jumping right back up from moves and a lot of back-and-forth. They went way too long for a match that was 50% comedy. Some good stuff and the comedy was fine, but the length of the match was counterproductive to the match they worked. The fans weren’t apathetic to the near falls by any means, but they didn’t get much of a reaction.

 

4. Shinsuke Nakamura defeats Jay Lethal (w/Truth Martini) and Jushin Thunder Liger and Mark Briscoe

 

This is the fourth time I have seen Liger wrestle live and I still pop up from my seat like a little kid the second his music hits. Just something about him. His entrance even got Tim to put down the O’s game on his iPad for a second and stand up. Nakamura was over HUGE. I’ve been to a lot of ROH shows the past 13 years and the reception for Nakamura was one of the more legit superstar reactions I can remember anyone getting in this promotion. They essentially worked this as a parejas increibles match with the New Japan guys versus the ROH guys, which begs the question why they just didn’t book that match in the first place. As Tim pointed out, they might as well have gone all the way with it and booked the losing team in a hair vs. hair or hair vs. mask match for Friday’s show. I thought the match was really fun. The makeshift teams did the usual “partners who don’t get along spots” including Lethal and Briscoe dragging each other into the ring off of “hard” tags. It broke down into a normal 4-way at the end after Liger broke up a Nakamura pin fall. Mark took some big bumps. Lethal hit three topes in a row and Nakamura got all of his signature spots in. Enjoyable match.

 

It took about an hour and a half to get through the first half of the show and then the usual 30-minute intermission. They started back from intermission with a segment to build up the Cheeseburger/Brual Bob Evans feud. I appreciate giving even the smallest of feuds some air time on a big show but by the time the first real match after intermission started, they were already pushing 10:00 PM.

 

5. Hiroshi Tanahashi defeats Roderick Strong

 

Very good match. I want to watch it again on tape to see how good but live it was a lot of fun. Tanahashi came out to an almost shockingly poor reaction. It wasn’t necessarily the fans being burnt out either since Strong’s reaction was much louder. I joked when Tanahashi split open Strong on a flying forearm, that he was trying to show everyone that they have the wrong idea about the quality of his strikes, but honestly up close most of his stuff looked good and was laid in nicely. I didn’t get the same impression live from the Bennett match last year, so maybe some of that credit belongs to Strong. They did a nice a hard lock up and rolled around on the mat a little bit to start. Strong was really bleeding heavily after the flying forearm. Like always, the blood helped the match a lot. Strong laid in some some hard chops throughout. Tanahashi took a couple of backbreakers including one on the apron and one that was a counter to a High Fly Flow. So either his back isn’t as bad as it is made out to be or he just doesn’t care. The blood loss got the crowd behind Strong and made for a quality near fall section. Strong got a legitimate near fall reaction off of a series of moves late which was really impressive considering there was no way he was winning. They raised each other’s arms after the match. I heard Strong/KUSHIDA from night #1 was good and this match alone was probably enough to get Strong a look in New Japan. Not sure where he really fits but he is certainly deserving of an opportunity. He’s having an excellent 2015.

 

6. The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) defeat CHAOS (Gedo & Kazuchika Okada)

 

There were the usual anti-TNA chants pre-match which Gedo encouraged and Okada seemed bemused by. Like Elgin, Addiction are much better off as heels. Gedo started and showed off his nice punches before tagging into Okada. Okada was over big, second only to Nakamura out of all the New Japan guys. Okada ran through some of his stuff before bringing Gedo back in to get worked over. Addiction had some nice double teams and their control portion of the match was fine. Okada got the hot tag and ran through his signature spots (the “drop kick the guy off the top rope spot” got a big reaction) before Gedo came back in to eat the pin. Good match overall. Exactly how you would expect it to be worked.

 

We left after this match, missing out on the ROH title match and the six-man main event. It was passed 10:30 by the time the Okada tag wrapped up and we had a 90-minute drive back home plus work in the morning. Overall, good show. Nothing was terrible. The crowd was into everything. Hiroyoki Unno (the red shoes referee) is over this time along with Tiger Hattori and was way over. Tanahashi/Strong was definitely match of the night and worth seeking out. All the New Japan guys worked reasonably hard. I would say noticeably harder than they did last year. Maybe it was just me, but the New York show last year felt like the usual Japanese guys on vacation show while this year felt more like a “real” show if that makes sense.

[shoe]

The VOD for War of the Worlds Night 1 from Philly is up.

[Grimmas]

NJPW should have ROH anouncer push NJWorld hard on these shows. Especially the new English sign up.

There were cards with all the info that said coupon on them (haven't looked enough to see if there is a deal there) on every seat at the show last night.

[shoe]

ROH WOTW 5/12/15 Night 1

 

Gedo vs Delrious

 

This was a nice match to start off. The backbone of the match was built on comedy. Delirious did 3 weak looking headbutts in the corner. Overall a fun opener.

 

Kushida vs Roderick Strong

 

This is one of the matches I'm most looking forward to. They didn't disappoint and tore the house down. We start with a battle for control. Kushida gets an early shine sequence. Strong cuts him off a dive by slamming him back 1st on the apron. Here Roddy just destroys his back. He even uses a Tarantula. Kushida is pretty great at selling the back. Kushida builds to his comeback . I love Kushida going after the arm. We see a hover board dive. Kushida is on fire. The guys build to a really hot finish with a lot of great nearfalls. The finish was a great payback to the back work on Kushida. 4 1/2*

 

Lethal vs Wattanabe

 

Lethal was great at eating Wattanabe's big moves. Letahl was great at making Wattanabe here. We get Lethal's dives. He works on top a bit. Though Lethal's best asset here was taking an ass kicking. 2 3/4*

 

Kingdom vs Young Bucks vs Addiction

 

This was a fun match with a lot of cool high spots. The Bucks really were the gel in this match. 3 1/2*

 

Elgin vs Naito

 

These guys working styles don't really click. Their styles don't really mesh.2*

 

ReDreagon vs Liger/Tanahashi

 

This was a nice southern tag. All 4 guys looked good. reDragon looked tremendous. This was a real meat and potato style match that I'm a fan of. 3 1/4*

 

AJ Styles vs Adam Cole

 

 

Styles is the best wrestler in the world, and I'm not a huge Cole fan between the ropes. So I'm curious how this with shake out. This was pretty great. It's the 2nd best match of the night. Their were a couple of things that brought it down for me. 1st after that nasty Bloody Sunday on the apron Cole takes most of the 20, but when he's back in he's able to get the advantage too quickly. The other thing that bothered me was when Styles took his own finisher by Cole and kicked out was very WWE, but whatever. What bothered me was he too got back on top too quickly. Styles strikes were really nasty tonight. I liked Styles destroying Coles neck throughout. The finish was nasty and very final. 3 3/4*

 

Briscoes vs Okada/Nakamura

 

The handshake deal was amusing. Nakamura should use some of this schtick when he's working NJPW multi mans on the house shows. I liked the teasing of finishers early straight out of the Jake Roberts teasing of the DDT book. This was a good showcase, but the match seemed to be booked too long. Okada is a master of timing those kick outs. 3*

 

Overall i thought this was an easy thumbs up show. I felt this was a better show up an down the card than the Global Wars IPPV. Though that main event at Global Wars was amazing.

[Matt D]

I need to see way more 2015 Strong. I really liked what I saw in the Thatcher match from earlier this year.

[shoe]

Strong has moved into my top 5 wrestlers of 2015.

[Grimmas]

Just got home from the TV tapings and it was a freaking great show!

 

Looking back at the listed matches the Bullet Club vs Chaos was an insane match. Not as great as the ten man, but above 4 stars. Crazy, crazy spots. Before the match the crowd cheered for each guy individually and they all got their moments to pose. This includes Red Shoes which was a great tribute to him.

 

Nakamura vs Strong was the match of the night. 4 1/4 or higher. Strong took a lot of the match and got a blood lip.

 

Tanahashi & Naito vs ACH & Sydal was another great match and would had been the second best match on night 1. ACH & Sydal have great chemistry and Naito & Tanahashi did an awesome job playing off their regular spots. Another 4 star contest.

 

Dalton Castle vs Liger was freaking great and I hope Dalton becomes a star going forward. I love his whole gimmick and he has amazing character work in ring.

 

The other really good match was Will Ferreria vs Kushida. Kushida is so over in Toronto its nuts.

 

The rest of the matches were building to angles and stuff. Including one where BJ Whitmer is stepping out of matches and putting Colby Corino in them for him and he gets killed. Moose had one of the best squash matches I have ever seen against Colby and War Machine killed him too. This is leading to some future match with Corino and Whitmer that the booking is getting me interested in.

 

The other major thing was Cedric Alexander using a wrench to pin Moose.

 

Next ppv is

Lethal vs Briscoe (Title vs Title)

Strong vs Elgin vs Moose (#1 Contenders)

 

HIROSHI TANAHASHI & TETSUYA NAITO vs. ACH & MATT SYDAL

JUSHIN THUNDER LIGER vs. DALTON CASTLE

THE KINGDOM vs. DOC GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON

MICHAEL ELGIN vs. GEDO

KUSHIDA vs. WILL FERRARA

[Johnny Sorrow]

THE KINGDOM (Michael Bennett & Matt Taven w/Maria Kanellis) vs. MATT SYDAL & JUSHIN THUDER LIGER: This ruled. It was the best match of the show.

- CHRIS SABIN vs. KUSHIDA vs O'REILLY: O'Reilly has all the charisma of Terry Schiavo and his knock knee bit seems like a pathetic answer to criticism that he stinks at selling. Sabin with all the personality here. Match was ok.

- GEDO & MOOSE w/STOKELY HATHAWAY & VEDA SCOTT vs. WATANABE & SILAS YOUNG: Good match, Silas is great.

- ACH vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA: Lotta fun. Nakamura is a fucking star.

- THE ADDICTION vs. RPG VICE vs. THE DECADE : I remember when Rocky had all the personality of a mop. Now he's awesome. Addiction are the fucking tits. Love those guys.And super fun match.

- CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA: The best match that didn't make me care at all about it. Nothing made me care.

- MICHAEL ELGIN vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI: Ditto. I didn't give a shit about it because it was placed in this block of "Main Events." And it stunk.

- ROH WORLD TELEVISION TITLE

JAY LETHAL vs. TETSUYA NAITO: I enjoyed this a lot. Jay is a personal favorite and I love what he's become. And it was a solid. fun match.,

**THE MAIN EVENT**

ROH ALL STARS (THE BRISCOES, RODERICK STRONG & WAR MACHINE)

vs. match

THE BULLET CLUB (MACHINE GUN KARL ANDERSON, DOC GALLOWS, AJ STYLES & THE YOUNG BUCKS): A lot of fun, super hot crowd, the match was a clusterfuck with moves, choreography, contrived spots, awful commentary, and the classic "we all wander around in a sorta fighting group to get into position to have us catch someone". deal. Bullet Club is a fucking lame name.They collect Bullets and talk about them? I want a group of "smart" wrestlers called "The Chess Club' to fight them. The ROH team looked far cooler with two hillbillies, two Barbarians, and an accountant who does backbreakers. Fun as fuck match, but not some all time classic. And Festus in Beefcake's Zodiac face paint isn't scary.

[shoe]

War of the Worlds night 2 5/13/15

 

 

Watanabe vs Adam Page

 

 

Page looked pretty vicious here. The Colby Corino stuff was fun. Watanabe should be watching Goto tapes. The guys didn't really click for me 1 3/4*

 

Elgin vs Kushida

 

Kushida always gets a smile out of me. The story is pretty basic here. The big man vs little man. Elgin busted out some high impact moves. Kushida targets the arm. The work on Elgin's arm was good. Elgin does the Backlund one arm dead lift spot. Kushida worked really hard, Elgin just isn't at Kushida's level. Through out these shows Elgin proved he's not at the level of the NJPW wrestlers. 2 1/2*

 

Naito vs O'Reilly

 

The pandering to the crowd early was great. I'm enjoying the southern spot show comedy spots early. They get to business, but I actually preferred the comedy spots. O'Reilly was pretty great going after the arm. 2 3/4*

 

I'll be back later with the rest of my thoughts.

[shoe]

Lethal vs Liger vs M. Briscoe vs Nakamura

 

This started a little slow. Liger and Nakamura's reception from the crowd was truly amazing. I really thought this was a great Lethal performance here and carried the match with Nakamura. Briscoe and Liger added to it though. I liked how Jay and Briscoe were working together and Lethal out of nowhere turned on him. The match built well and told a good story. 3 1/4*

 

Tanahashi vs Strong

 

I thought this was an excellent match. My minor gripe with it was Tanahashi didn't bring the intensity like Strong did. I felt he worked hard though. The flurry at the end made you believe Strong had a chance of winning, and seemed the crowd believed in him. Strong was great at working over Tanahashi's back. He brought an intensity. Tanahashi was good in his working underneath. Especially working in his signature spots. The blood was good, but the announcers were more worried about getting it stopped than announcing the match. 4*

 

Addiction vs Okada/Gedo

 

I thought Addiction really came across as dicks in this match. Gedo's FIP work was great as was the Addiction's work on top. Okada was set up to shine and he did. They worked a southern tag so the story was easy to tell. 3 1/4*

 

Jay Briscoe vs Bobby Fish

 

Another good match that told a basic story with a finish that established a pecking order. The crowd was actually booing Jay early but it went away. The story was Jay the fighter vs Fish the technician.Jay would use punches, upper cuts and other rough house moves. Fish would work the leg and that was the story. Fish kicked out of the Jay driller, but ate a DVDR on the apron and another driller for the pin. 3 1/4*

 

Kingdom vs Young Bucks/AJ Styles

 

 

This was another good match. When they worked the Southern tag it was really good. At times I thought the match tried to be too cute. Matt doing a double FIP section was great. 3 1/2*

 

 

Overall another good show. Not as good as the live reports of the show were. I thought this was the 3rd best of the 3 shows. Still a thumbs up show with a great atmosphere.

[SomethingSavage]

 

**THE MAIN EVENT**

ROH ALL STARS (THE BRISCOES, RODERICK STRONG & WAR MACHINE)

vs. match

THE BULLET CLUB (MACHINE GUN KARL ANDERSON, DOC GALLOWS, AJ STYLES & THE YOUNG BUCKS): A lot of fun, super hot crowd, the match was a clusterfuck with moves, choreography, contrived spots, awful commentary, and the classic "we all wander around in a sorta fighting group to get into position to have us catch someone". deal. Bullet Club is a fucking lame name.They collect Bullets and talk about them? I want a group of "smart" wrestlers called "The Chess Club' to fight them. The ROH team looked far cooler with two hillbillies, two Barbarians, and an accountant who does backbreakers. Fun as fuck match, but not some all time classic. And Festus in Beefcake's Zodiac face paint isn't scary.

 

 

Spot-on fucking analysis. Love it.

 

Bullet Club is "over" enough with their marketed fan-base, so it's kind of forgivable for them to have such a goofy name, but yeah. Saying it out loud to people who aren't aware of what & who they are? And you'd come away with a bunch of people asking, "What the fuck is a Bullet Club?"

 

They're Aces & Eights essentially, with a better roster. I know some fanboys would get in line to rip me apart for saying that, but come on. That's the gimmick. It's a Sons spin-off that's just kind of slowly morphed into it's own thing. Part biker gang, part wrestling posse with face-paint, Samoans, rednecks, ruffians, and so on.

 

Oh. And Pete, I really 'preciate you posting all these reviews & thoughts for the recent Super Juniors & ROH shows, man. I didn't miss a single Super Juniors show last summer - or the joint shows with ROH - but work's a son of a bitch this year. So I have to be a bit more choosy, and these rundowns help out on that end.

[shoe]

Anytime man. Not everyone is going to agree with me, but I feel I'm fair for the most part .