ROH HITS & MISSES 4/15: Roppongi Vice, Cheeseburger, Ferrara, Eight-Man Wildcard Match, Top Prospect Recap

HITS

Roppongi Vice vs. Cheeseburger & Will Ferrara: Love the reaction Cheeseburger always gets every time he comes out. Ferrara starts things off but he gives way to Cheeseburger almost immediately. Cheeseburger is on fire at the very beginning of the match before RPG takes over. The whole time I am watching this match, I’m thinking “ok, this match is good but there’s no personal issue here and it seems to just be a match for the sake of having a match.” It’s not to say that there are not some nice spots and wrestling throughout. It’s just that there’s no personal issue which I am big on when it comes to wrestling. At one point Ferrara hits a nice suicide dive to the outside on to Barreta. This is followed by a nice flying knee from Romero on to Ferrara. Ferrara does get back on the offensive and begins to work on Barreta in the ring. Meanwhile, Cheeseburger hits Romero with a dive over the top to the outside. Barreta is in the ring still and turns the table on Ferrara which leads to RPG hitting their finisher on Ferrara and pinning him. However, after the match Ferrara for whatever reason is not happy with Cheeseburger. We’ll see if this leads to anything down the line between the two. I thought this ending made the match seem like more than just a match because at the end of it, now I am wondering what’s the deal with the perceived conflict between Cheeseburger and Ferrara.

Top Prospect Recap: Good job recapping the Top Prospect tournament. It’s been going on for a few weeks now. With the finals being televised next week, it’s a good thing that the commentary team plugs the finals and shows a quick recap of how we got to this point.

Silas Young, “Hangman” Adam Page, Jay White, Jay Lethal vs. Colt Cabana, Lio Rush, WarBeard Hanson, Bobby Fish: This Wildcard match is a match where the winning team will have a 4-man match next week to determine who gets a match against the ROH World champion. The opening series of moves and the exchange with Rush and White are impressive. They end up in a stalemate but that’s not the best part of it. The best part is when Young comes into the ring and sarcastically tells them both good job. Being the bruising butt kicker that Young can be made the sarcastic nature of his “good job” comments towards the choreographed nature of the moves by Rush and White mean a lot. The crowd had a nice reaction to Young’s sarcasm. This does lead to Young coming in but then Hanson tags himself in. Young wants no part of Hanson so Young tags Lethal in which leads to a fight between the team of Young, Page, White, and Lethal as we go to commercial. Back from the commercial break, things have settled down although the team of Young, Page, White, and Lethal seem to be at odds throughout the match. I thought the highlight of the match was when Hanson hits a series of corner to corner lariats. Rush is then tagged in by Hanson. Hanson slams Rush on to Page in the same manner that Hanson would normally slam Rowe down on to an opponent. However, Hanson then convinces Rush that Rush should slam Hanson on to Page. The crowd goes crazy as they tease this and then Rush does slam Hanson on to Page. The reaction that this gets from the crowd is tremendous. The match goes on a little while longer with various other members of each team getting in on the action. Hangman Page at one point abandons his team. Kazarian also shows up and fights with Page to the back. Rush and Lethal are now in the ring mixing it up. Rush goes to the top rope and attempts to hit Lethal with a frog splash. Lethal gets his knees up though. Lethal gets up and then hits Rush with Lethal Injection and the team of Young, Page, White, and Lethal win. Riccaboni tells us that these four guys will do battle in a four-corner survivor match to determine who gets a shot at the ROH World title. Riccaboni doesn’t say when this match will take place though. This was a fantastic match with the highlight of it being the part of the match with Rush and Hanson.

MISSES

Caprice Coleman (w/Kenny King) vs. Chris Sabin: The short and sweet version is that this was a good match. If you weren’t aware, there are a combined 37 years of pro wrestling experience between these two guys and they don’t disappoint. The crowd is into the match during most of it. About the mid-point of the match, Lio Rush works his way down to ringside. With Rush now at ringside, Rush now evens things out. As the match continues, Coleman hits a beautiful flipping northern lights three times in a row on Sabin. Eventually Sabin is able to get back on offense. Sabin soon takes out King on the outside of the ring. Back in the ring, King attempts to hold Coleman’s hands on a sunset flip from Sabin. Rush kicks King and Coleman’s hands which breaks them up. Sabin now has Coleman pinned and the referee counts to three giving Sabin the win. This was a good match. Nothing special but it was fine. Why is it a miss? It just felt thrown together for the purposes of filling TV time. This is not to take anything away from King, Coleman, Rush, or Sabin. Although a very good match, the match just felt like a time filler.

Eight-man Wildcard Match: I may have missed something but I heard no mention of this match on last week’s ROH TV. Readers can correct me if I am wrong on this but I did not recall it. Although, as I mentioned above, this was an excellent main event on this week’s ROH TV.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I was lukewarm at best during the first half of this week’s ROH. But then came the main event. Although no mention was made of this match in previous week’s episode that I can remember, I felt that this was an excellent match to determine a four-corner survival match to see who will get a shot at the ROH World Title. Also, I’m glad to see that Riccaboni and Kelly plugged next week’s Top Prospect final.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S ARTICLE: ROH HITS & MISSES 4/8: Bully Ray, Hanson, Top Prospect Tournament continues, Skyler, Kingdom, Young, Martinez