ROH HITS & MISSES 6/24: The match to watch this week is Silas Young vs. Bobby Fish, plus Gordon vs. Gresham, Martinez vs. White, White promo

HITS

Flip Gordon vs. Jonathan Gresham: This match is the definition of what I believe ROH is. Two athletic guys putting on a performance. If two guys beating on each other wrestling a slower paced match is your thing, then this match is not for you. But if you’re into today’s wrestling style with lots of athleticism then you’ll enjoy this opening match. I say all of this to say, when the match started I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it. I was wrong, these guys put on a great match. Gordon as a relative newcomer to ROH, really showed why he is deserving to be in ROH. I thought Gresham and Gordon told a great story throughout. Gordon hit a bunch of great high-flying moves but to me nothing beat when Gresham was on the outside on the floor. Gordon is in the ring. Gordon gets a running start towards the corner and jumps from the second rope to the top rope by taking steps and only using one foot to launch himself to the outside and hitting Gresham. Gordon got some great height and air. Other than this, there was plenty of back and forth offense between the two. The finish of the match is hard to describe but Gresham is able to get Gordon into a submission maneuver. Gordon taps out and Gresham gets the win in a very good opening match. I can’t put this match over enough as these two guys worked their butts off in this matchup. Alex Shelley comes in the ring at the end and tells Gordon “I think you’re the future of this company.” Shelley also congratulates Gordon on signing his ROH contract. Gresham and Gordon also raise each other’s hands at the end of the match as the crowd chants ROH. Again, outstanding opening match

Jay White Promo: This is a replay from last week’s promo by White promising Punishment Martinez that he is going to get Martinez back for jumping him from behind. Like I mentioned last week, I thought this was solid and I liked the replay of it leading into today’s main event between Martinez and White on today’s ROH TV.

Josh “The Goods” Woods Promo: I didn’t think this was a great promo but it was by far not bad either. You can tell that Woods seems to need more experience cutting promos but at the same time I think that may be some of the charm. He’s only asking for what was promised to the Top Prospect winner this year which is a shot at the ROH TV title. My guess is this is planting the seeds of him getting his shot in a few weeks or even a month or two down the line.

Silas Young vs. Bobby Fish: The reason I watch ROH is for matches like this one. This might be the best match I’ve seen this year in ROH on their weekly TV episodes. Notice I mentioned the weekly TV and not including the PPVs. This match was outstanding. Young and Fish held nothing back and beat the heck out of each other. There was a lot of great action which included Fish hitting a spear on to Young on the outside that sends Young into the barricade that was impactful. Some of the kicks in the match are just vicious. Fish also hits Young with a spear through the ropes where both guys go flying to the outside. They went to commercial in the middle of the match, but I like how when they came back from commercial, they went to a picture-in-picture and showed what went on while they were away. Shortly after they come back, Fish has Young tied up between the ropes and corner post and Fish is destroying Young across the chest with some solid kicks by Fish. Young is able to fend off Fish and get back on offense when Fish misses Young and hits the corner post. They get back into the ring and Young hits Fish with his finisher Misery. Young gets the win over Fish in a fantastic match. The main event was still to come at this point but at this point I said to myself that White and Martinez were going to have a hard time following this. This was a fantastic match. I’d even go far as saying this was a PPV quality match between these two.

Punishment Martinez vs. Jay White: No code of honor at the beginning of this match as you would expect given the bad blood between these two guys. I thought the match was average. I started to put the match in the MISS category but stopped short of doing so. The pace felt a little too slow. However, as they got towards the finish, we got a couple of kick outs on two just before referee Todd Sinclair hit the three. The finish was very quick and a surprise as White hit Martinez with a unique roll-up. However, this doesn’t end things even after White wins. The two keep going at it and things spill out to the outside of the ring. As we go off air, Martinez powerbombs White through the timekeeper table on the outside of the ring. If I was a betting man, I’d say that this war between these two is not over even though White does get the victory. The last few minutes of the match and finish were good. The bulk of the match was average in my opinion but overall, I was fine with what they did. It wasn’t a bad match but something felt like it was missing that I just couldn’t put my finger on. And again, the match that came before it was outstanding so maybe that’s what took away from this.

MISSES

None to report.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I am always skeptical on PPV weekends with ROH. I have continued to say in the past that in 2015 and 2016 I would feel like ROH packs it in and doesn’t give us much to watch on the weekly TVs due to the PPV. I liked this episode a lot. None of the matches had anything to do with the current storylines going on right now with the PPV, but we still got two good matches and one stellar one with Young and Fish. I’m trying not to oversell Young and Fish, but if you only have a few minutes this week to watch wrestling, I’d use those 15 minutes to seek out and watch Young and Fish wrestle each other. It was simply that good.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: ROH HITS & MISSES 6/17: Episode #300 with Fish, Lethal, Briscoes, Bully Ray, The Boys, Kingdom, Kazarian, Daniels

Mike Mills is the PWTorch.com ROH TV Hits and Misses Specialist, providing his point of view on ROH TV weekly. You can follow Mike at @BTT_Podcast and @Mike504Saints on Twitter.