Ring of Honor TV Report
December 21, 2009
Taped November 5 in Philadelphia, Pa.
Episode #39 - Third episode of Series Seven
Report by Mike DeRosenroll, Torch ROH specialist

Positives

- The show was built around Colt Cabana and worked as a vehicle for elevating him. From Cabana's promo, to having Mike Hogewood talk about Cabana as a title contender, to Cabana's win in the main event and the music video featuring Cabana, the show made Cabana seem important.

- Using footage from the "Final Countdown Tour: Boston" show into the Sonjay Dutt-Delirious in the segment on their feud was good integration of the DVD product and the TV product.

Negatives

- Apart from a couple of ads plugging the replay of Final Battle 2009, viewers never would have known ROH just had a pay-per-view. Not even mentioning the fallout of the pay-per-view made Final Battle seem not at all important. Fans who only watch the TV product weren't given the impression they missed out on something if they did not order the show. I realize this TV show was taped weeks ago, but it's also post-produced. They could have inserted a video package of highlights before they had more time to insert a real focus on the PPV.

- A couple of narrative discontinuity between the pay-per-view on the weekend and the TV show stood out like a sore thumb this week. At Final Battle, Erick Stevens wrestled in a tag match as a member of the Embassy. On this show, he ran in to save Necro Butcher from a beat down by the Embassy. At Final Battle, Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli reformed the Kings of Wrestling. On this show, they were in the ring arguing over who should be the number one contender.

- All three matches featured distractions by managers, two using exactly the same "manager grabs the babyface's heel" spot. That is lazy repetitive booking.

Detailed Show Recap

- The show opened with a video of Jim Cornette explaining the Pick 6 Contenders Series. You have to win a Pick 6 qualifying match to get into ROH World Title contention. Extensive clips then aired of last week's Pick 6 Series match in which Delirious defeated Kenny King and Tyler Black defeated Sonjay Dutt.

- In the ring, Shane Hagadorn, Chris Hero's Director of Ringside Operations, introduced Hero, who made his full ring entrance accompanied by Sara Del Rey. Hero began cutting a promo on Jim Cornette for forgetting to mention him as a top contender for the ROH World Title. Hero said no one in ROH has his size or strength. Claudio Castagnoli interrupted and came to ringside. Castagnoli and Hero began arguing over which of them should be the number one contender. Jim Cornette interrupted. He said he wast tired of their complaining and said number one contender status would not be decided by what Hero and Castagnoli want. Cornette said that Castagnoli would get a chance to wrestle in a Pick 6 match later tonight, while Chris Hero would get to wrestle Kenny Omega in a Pick 6 match in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, he told Hero to stick around because he would be wrestling in a special match in a few minutes.

- The opening theme and montage rolled.

1 - CHRIS HERO (w/Shane Hagadorn and Sara Del Rey) vs. KYLE O'REILLY

Dave Prazak mentioned that O'Reilly has wrestled on some recent ROH live events and that wrestling Hero was a great opportunity in his HDNet debut. O'Reilly used superior quickness to show well in the early going with a arm drag, a drop kick and some other strikes. Hero rolled outside for a breather at 1:00, but O'Reilly chased him outside. Hero ran around the ring and rolled back inside. As O'Reilly followed him back in, Hagadorn and Del Rey grabbed his ankles, forcing him to pause on the apron to shake them off. This gave Hero an opening to land a running kick, sending O'Reilly crashing back to the outside. Hero now took control of the match and worked over O'Reilly with his trademark strikes, while playing the overconfident heel. O'Reilly ducked a running forearm strike at 3:30 and came back at Hero was a series of strikes of his own. O'Reilly hit a swinging DDT for a near fall at 4:30. O'Reilly signaled that he was going to attempt a finisher by making the garrote gesture over his neck, but before he could land another move Hero came back with a rolling elbow out of nowhere, followed by the Death Blow spinning elbow and the pin.

WINNER: Hero in 5:00. Average match designed to make O'Reilly look like more than just another jobber. O'Reilly got a decent amount of offense, but didn't sell as much for Hero as he could have. I did not like that, when O'Reilly made his comeback after Hero's sustained beating, he popped up and went on the offense as though Hero had not done a thing to him.

- Backstage, Kyle Durden interviewed Embassy members Prince Nana, Joey Ryan and Ernie Osiris. Osiris is no longer "Dirty Ernie." Now he is dressed in an ill-fitting Miami Vice-style leisure suit with a much shorter beard. Durden said that Ryan would face Necro Butcher later in the show, and asked Nana what a Prince and his Embassy would want for Christmas. Nana pointed to Osiris and said that he has been blessed just by being in the Embassy's presence. Ryan said that he will give the gift of getting rid of Necro Butcher from ROH once and for all. Nana then said, "As for Prince Nana, I need something hard, something tough, something that's not going to back down and that's going to keep going all night long. The Embassy forever. Merry Christmas." As Nana said this, Durden grimaced and look down at Nana's waist. Nana made the best of some bad material here.

- In the studio, Dave Prazak said that what he wants for Christmas is for Chris Hero to knock some more people out with the rolling elbow and win the ROH World Title next year. Hogewood said that he thinks Colt Cabana has put himself in position to become the World Champion, and threw to a pre-taped Colt Cabana promo.

- The pre-taped Colt Cabana promo aired. Cabana was sitting down talking while clips from his matches aired. Cabana said that he may have a playful nature and like to have a good time, but the best time would be winning the ROH World Title. He explained that his submission finisher is called the Billy Goat's Curse after the reputed curse that he kept the Chicago Cubs from winning the World Series for such a long time. Cabana said that he'd like to win the ROH World Title to bring a championship back to Chicago. Good promo.

- Hogewood said that main event would be Colt Cabana vs Claudio Castagnoli, and that the Joey Ryan-Necro Butcher match was coming up next. He then threw to a pre-taped Necro Butcher segment.

- A pre-taped Necro Butcher promo aired in the same sit down format as the previous Cabana promo. Necro said that there are two Necro Butchers. The Necro Butcher sitting there now is a normal thirty-six year old kid from West Virginia with two little babies who spends a lot of time watching Sesame Street and changing diapers. He said that the Necro Butcher in the ring sees his opponents as trying to stop him from taking care of his family, so he thinks nothing of swinging a chair or whatever else he can get his hands on to get the win and take the money home to his family. A nice attempt to explain the Necro Butcher's character, but you have to wonder how much sense it makes for Necro to tie his weapons-based wrestling style to wanting to take how the winner's purse when, logically, using a weapon in a wrestling match should get you disqualified and cost you money. In that sense, Necro's character looks rather more like an idiot than a sympathetic babyface.

[Commercial Break]

- A clip aired of Sonjay Dutt putting Daizee Haze in the camel clutch at "The Final Countdown Tour: Boston" event back in September. Prazak said that Dutt and Delirious still have an issue to settle, and Hogewood said that Dutt has challenged Delirious to a submission match. They aired a clip of Delirious cutting a short promo in his Delirious language. The promo ended with Delirious saying "tap, tap, tap" over and over. Hogewood said, "For those of you who don't understand Delirious, it's on."

2 - NECRO BUTCHER vs. JOEY RYAN (w/Prince Nana and Ernesto Osiris)

Dave Prazak said that Ernie Osiris was now known as Ernesto. Necro came to the ring carrying a traffic cone. The announcers discussed whether getting his with a traffic cone would do any damage. Referee Todd Sinclair made Necro put away the traffic cone. As Necro argued with the referee, Ryan tried for a sneak attack but Necro saw it coming and beat Ryan to the punch. This gave Necro the advantage of the bell sounded, and he beat Ryan all around the ring in the early going. At 0:30, Ryan caught Necro with a thumb to the eye to switch the advantage. Ryan worked over Necro heel style for a short while, until Necro caught Ryan's foot on a kick attempt, kicked Ryan in the gut and threw him to the outside at 1:30. Necro followed Ryan outside and got big pops from the crowd by repeatedly throwing Ryan over the guardrail into the front row. Necro threw Ryan back into the ring at 3:30 but, as Necro tried to climb in after him, Osiris hit Necro with a running double axehandle while the referee's back was turned looking at Ryan. Necro turned to go after Ryan, giving Ryan an opportunity to go back to Necro's eyes and regain the advantage. Ryan then got another sustained spell of heel offence, using tactics like choking Necro and distracting the referee so Prince Nana could get a cheap shot.

At 8:00, Ryan went to the top rope, but Necro had enough gas in the tank to grab the tope rope, causing Ryan to slip and crotch himself on the turnbuckle. Necro then brought Ryan down to the mat with a hurricanrana. Osiris jumped on the apron to create a distraction while Nana tossed Ryan a bag of white powder, which Ryan tossed in Necro's eyes. However, the referee turned away from Osiris in time to see Ryan throw the powder and immediately disqualified Ryan.

WINNER: Necro Butcher by disqualification in 8:30. Just an okay match, but the crowd seemed into Necro and the match served a purpose in building heat for the Embassy.

After the match, the Embassy beat down Necro. Ryan grabbed a chair from ringside and brought it into the ring, teasing that he was going to use it on Necro, but Erick Stevens hit the ring to make the save. Two nights ago, on the Final Battle 2009 pay-per-view, Stevens was a member of The Embassy. ROH really needs to get better at narrative continuity.

- Hogewood announced that next week's show will be be a "Best of" show featuring the best moments of 2009.

3 - COLT CABANA vs. CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI (w/Prince Nana and Ernesto Osiris) - Pick 6 Contenders Series Match

Cabana caught Castagnoli unaware with a school boy at the opening bell to almost break the record for fastest pin of all time. Castagnoli recovered, and the two began a series of back-and-forth exchanges of chain wrestling and mat wrestling. Interestingly, Cabana wrestled a more European style than Castagnoli in these exchanges. Cabana had most of the advantage through these exchanges, giving him an opportunity to showcase his unique style. The story they told was of Cabana consistently getting the better of Castagnoli in these scientific exchanges and Castagnoli getting progressively more frustrated until finally, at 4:30, Castagnoli slapped Cabana in the face and bailed out of the ring. Cabana followed, chased Castagnoli around the ring, Castagnoli rolled back into the ring and, as Cabana tried to follow, Nana grabbed Cabana's ankle. This allowed Castagnoli to hit Cabana with a European uppercut to switch the momentum. This is exactly the same way Shane Hagadorn helped Chris Hero turn the momentum in the opening match, and the third straight match where the heel used an outside distraction to gain the advantage.

Castagnoli worked Cabana over heel style for a while, deploying a lot of elbow drops, chin locks and strikes. The kids in the crowd chanted for a Cabana comeback, the adults not so much. Cabana mounted a comeback at 8:00 by catching Castagnoli's foot on a running boot attempt and striking back at Castagnoli. Cabana had a short flurry of offence, but Castagnoli cut off the comeback by catching Cabana in a cross body attempt and countering it into a spinning backbreaker. Castagnoli tried for his Ricola bomb finisher, but Cabana slipped out of his grasp, landed a couple of quick strikes and then caught Castagnoli with a leverage pin for the win.

WINNER: Cabana in 9:30 to capture a spot in the Pick 6. Pretty good match, but lacking the drama and intensity of a typical ROH TV main event. It was entertaining for what it was though. Cabana is a unique and special talent in the wrestling industry and seems to have good chemistry with Castagnoli.

- The show ended with a music video for the full-length version of the show's new theme song, by Kidd Russell. The video featured a lot of backstage video for a ROH show, focused largely on Colt Cabana.

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.

[Torch art and photos (c) PWTorch.com]

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