Ring of Honor TV Report
November 23, 2009
Taped September 11 in Philadelphia, Pa.
Episode #35 - Fifth episode of Series Six
Report by Mike DeRosenroll, Torch ROH specialist

Positives

- The main event tag team title match between the American Wolves and the Young Bucks was excellent and deserves consideration for match of the week. It was built up well throughout the show as well. The Bucks got a nice UFC-style video package and the Wolves cut a good promo beforehand.

- ROH continues to do a nice job of making what happened in past weeks seem important. The show featured several references to Bryan Danielson’s farewell last week, and also furthered the Kenny King-Jerry Lynn injury angle.

Negatives

- Jim Cornette’s pre-taped promo was bad. It seemed like a misguided attempt to mock Dixie Carter’s locker room speech on Impact a couple of weeks ago, but it fell flat. Cornette’s delivery was good, as always, but it was too insider and didn’t fit the tone of the rest of the show.

- The undercard matches were not strong this week. D-Lo Brown confusingly played babyface during his squash win even though he has recently been a heel, and the Super Smash Brothers squash match was hurt by poor announcing.

Detailed Show Recap

- The show opened with a video package recapping last week’s farewell to “American Dragon” Bryan Danielson.

- In the studio, Mike Hogewood talked about how much ROH will miss Danielson. Dave Prazak said “let’s talk about the present” and hyped the main event tag team title match between the American Wolves and the Young Bucks.

1 – BRENT ALBRIGHT vs. KENNY KING (w/Rhett Titus)

During King’s ring entrance, an inset box aired the footage of King and Titus’s attack on Jerry Lynn several weeks ago. Albright opened the match by taking King down and controlling him on the mat. At 2:00, King managed to get the upper hand and take Albright down with a Japanese arm drag. King celebrated with a cocky dance, allowing Albright to hit him with a drop kick. Albright continued to control the match until Titus got involved by dragging King to the outside to give King a breather. Albright went to the outside and started chasing Titus around the ring, allowing King to catch the distracted Albright with a clothesline at 3:30.

King threw Albright back into the ring and began beating Albright down heel style. Albright mounted a comeback at 5:30 by avoiding the King’s Coronation and countering with a move that looked like a modified version of Samoa Joe’s old ST Joe. A few fans initially booed Albright’s comeback, but Albright got the crowd behind him at 7:00 by launching King over the top rope with an impressive-looking exploder and following it up with a head first dive through the ropes onto King on the outside. Titus distracted Albright, allowing King to try for a crossbody on Albright off the ring apron, but Albright caught King in midair and slammed him into the guardrails. Albright got back in the ring, pulled King up to the apron and tried to suplex King back into the ring, but Titus grabbed Albright’s ankle to enable King to shift his weight and come down across Albright’s chest and pin Albright’s shoulders with the help of Titus pulling on Albright’s ankle to give King some extra leverage.

WINNER: King in 8:00. Good match, but the finish was poor. If ROH is serious about pushing Kenny King, he should not need that much help from Titus to beat a mid-card babyface like Albright. The fans really want permission to start cheering for King, but Albright did a nice job of bringing the fans around to his side.

- After the match, an enraged Albright began beating up both King and Titus until Austin Aries hit the ring to turn the tide. Titus brought a chair into the ring and smashed it across Albright’s back. King and Titus tried to set up Albright for the same spike piledriver that injured Jerry Lynn, but Colt Cabana hit the ring with a chair to send the heel running.

- Hogewood hyped the upcoming main event World Tag Team Title match and threw to a video package on the Young Bucks.

- A UFC-style promo package aired on the Young Bucks. Clips of Matt and Nick Jackson speaking in a sit down interview format were interspersed with highlights from their matches. The Young Bucks called the ROH World Tag Team titles the most prestigious tag belts in the world. They said just getting a shot at the belts was huge for them and they were ready to take it to the American Wolves. This segment was the first character development the Young Bucks have gotten on ROH television and they came across as nice humble young babyfaces.

2 – D-LO BROWN vs. SAL RINAURO

Rinauro tried to cheap shot Brown during the hand shake by attempting an Irish whip, but Brown didn’t budge. Brown hit Rinauro with a few strikes, then threw him to the outside and played babyface to the crowd. He then hauled Rinauro back into the ring with a version of Nigel McGuinness’s Tower of London off the top rope. With Rinauro out in the ring from the Tower of London, Brown went to the outside, took a cell phone from the timekeeper and pretended to send a tweet. Mike Hogewood plugged his own Twitter feed. Rinauro teased a comeback, but Brown easily hit his finisher for the pin.

WINNER: Brown in 2:30. Below average match. Brown was last seen on ROH TV playing heel, but he seemed to go into business for himself in this match by playing for and getting a babyface reaction from the crowd. Poor Sal Rinauro has been saddled with a terrible jobber gimmick where he is afraid of everything and everyone. Logically, Rinauro should someday find his courage and start to win matches, but so far he is not getting any sympathy from the crowd because he comes across like such a loser.

- Backstage, Kyle Durden said that rumors about that former ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness is about to leave ROH and introduced McGuinness for an interview. Durden asked McGuinness what he was feeling. McGuinness shook his head at Durden and walked off the set without saying a word.

- Hogewood announced that a Jim Cornette was coming up after the commercial break.

[Commercial Break]

- Nigel McGuinness made his full ring entrance. He teased a humble farewell promo by saying “right now, there is one person I want to say thank you to.” Then he went to the back and came back out into the arena saying “it’s me who believed in myself when everybody else doubted me.” The fans chanted “Thank you Nigel”. McGuinness said he was leaving the building. He climbed over the guardrails and began walking out of the building through the crowd. As he left he said “this is the last time you will see me on Ring of Honor TV.” The camera followed Nigel out of the building and showed him walking away down the street. Hogewood said “Wow, what a moment.”

- Backstage, Kyle Durden interviewed the American Wolves. Richards said the Young Bucks were excited just to be in ROH, but that ROH is the domain of the American Wolves. Edwards said Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson were gone but the Wolves were still standing strong. Edwards did more talking than he usually does in American Wolves promos and seems to have progressed a lot in his promo skills compared to when the team first formed about a year ago and Richards had to carry the team on promos (along with their former manager “Sweet and Sour” Larry Sweeney).

3 – THE SUPER SMASH BROTHERS (PLAYER UNO & PLAYER DOS) vs BRANDON DAY & JOHN KERMON

Day and Kermon took an early advantage by cheap shotting the Super Smash Brothers during the pre-match handshake. They threw Player Uno to the outside and began double-teaming Player Dos, but Uno managed to blind tag his way into the match at 0:30 and catch Kermon with a hangman neckbreaker to turn the tide. This gave the Super Smash Brothers to display a few of their patented double team moves on Kerman. Day blind tagged Kermon at 1:30 but Dos failed to see the tag and kept attacking Kermon, allowing Day to elbow him from behind and turn the tide again.

As Day and Kermon isolated and worked over Player Dos, the announcers annoyingly talked about old video games. Ms. Pac-Man, Pong and Q-Bert all got more attention than the wrestlers in the ring. Dos turned the tide with a double Pele kick on Day and Kermon at 2:30 and got to Uno for the hot tag. Uno tried for a sunset flip on Kermon at 3:30, but Day, who was out on the floor, grabbed Kermon’s hands to keep him from falling over. Dos took out Day with a nice dive over the top rope and Uno quickly scored a leverage pin on Kermon.

WINNERS: The Super Smash Brothers in 3:30. Decent tag team squash match, but the announcers should have done a lot more to build up the Super Smash Brothers than talk about video games.
- A pre-taped Jim Cornette promo aired. He said he will make his live debut on ROH TV in two weeks. Then, ironically, the promo started to sound eerily like Dixie Carter’s terrible speech to the TNA locker room a couple of weeks ago on Impact. He said “everybody’s got to tow the line and everybody’s got to do their part…I want to hear how you can help Ring of Honor or I want to give you directions to the back door…For anybody in the Ring of Honor who doesn’t want to get together, who doesn’t want to be part of the team, who doesn’t want to get 100 percent behind the creative direction, well, like I said, I’ve got directions to the back door.”

The major difference between this speech and Carter’s speech on Impact was that Cornette at least singled out heel World Champion Austin Aries at one point, which somewhat tied it into existing storylines. As a result, it wasn’t as bad as the Carter speech, but it still wasn’t good. It may have been a deliberately ironic attempt to mock the Carter speech, but ROH would do well to avoid this kind of self-indulgent insider storyline. Jim Cornette would be better off taking out his anger at TNA off camera.

4 –ROH tag champions THE AMERICAN WOLVES (DAVEY RICHARDS & EDDIE EDWARDS with Shane Hagadorn) vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS (MATT JACKSON & NICK JACKSON) -- ROH Tag Title match

Nick Jackson started out against Richards and quickly took advantage with a series of arm drags. The gave the Young Bucks a chance to make some quick tags early on and display some of their trademarks double-team moves. The fans popped big for many of the Young Bucks’ high-flying moves. Richards finally managed to ground Matt at 2:00 with a kick to the gut-snap mare combination and tag out to Edwards. The Wolves proceeded to isolate Matt and beat him down with their trademark hard strikes as well as various heel tactics. Matt sold very well for the Wolves and did an excellent job getting the crowd into it each time he teased a comeback.

Matt finally reached Nick for a hot tag at 8:00 and Nick unleashed an incredible flurry of offence, highlighted by an amazing standing back flip over the top rope onto Richards outside the ring. The Wolves finally turned the tide at 9:30 when Nick went to the top rope and Richards, who was not the legal man, came around the outside and sent Nick crashing to the floor. The Wolves got a near fall on Matt at 10:00 after Edwards hit him with a shotgun dropkick from the top rope and Richards followed it up with a tombstone piledriver.

The Bucks regained the advantage at 10:30 when Richards went to the top rope but Nick reentered the fray and took Richards down from the top with a reverse hurricanrana. Nick then drove through the ropes onto Richards on the floor while Matt hit Edwards with a neckbreaker off the top for a near fall at 11:00. The Buck followed this up with their outstanding More Bang For Your Buck finisher, but Richards made it back into the ring to break up the subsequent pin attempt at 11:30. Richards then went toe-to-toe in a strike exchange with Nick and came out on top. Matt then went toe-to-toe with Richards and got the upper hand, only to have Edwards recover an intervene to save Richards. The Wolves hit a double team lung blower for a near at 12:00, then Edwards locked in a half crab on Matt. The crowd was on fire at this point. Nick tried to make the save, but Richards but him off and Matt finally had to tap out.

WINNERS: The American Wolves in 12:30. An excellent match from beginning to end. The Bucks got it off to a hot start, the Wolves did an excellent job as always building heat in the middle portion while Matt’s selling was excellent, and the finishing sequence was red hot. After the match, the announcers talked up how the Young Bucks had taken the champions to the limit. This is a fine example of how a team can lose clean but still get elevated by the match.

We welcome your 0-10 score and comments on this show for an "ROH TV Reax" feature in the Torch Feedback section of PWTorch.com. To contribute your thoughts on ROH, email to pwtorch@gmail.com using our feedback form.

We suggest these recent related articles...

PARKS'S WWE SMACKDOWN REPORT 10/8: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of Thursday show, including Roman Reigns & Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt & Braun Strowman

METZGER'S ROH TV REPORT 10/4 & 10/7: IWGP World champ Okada vs. Roderick Strong main event, plus Briscoes vs. Time Splitters, more from "Field of Honor," Overall Reax

MCMAHON'S TNA IMPACT REPORT 10/7: TNA Title Series kicks off, Bound for Glory fall-out, more; Overall Reax