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ROH TV TAPING REPORT
JULY 29, 2017
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
REPORT BY ERIC FROM CHARLOTTE, PWTORCH VIP MEMBER
I have never been to an ROH show before, so I was excited to see the promotion in person and experience non-WWE wrestling.
A decent size crowd for a very small arena. It was probably two-thirds filled with a pretty good mixture of both men and women, all around the age of 18-49.
There was a merchandise stand on the floor, and they seemed to have every ROH shirt available, and about 80 percent of them were variations of Bullet Club shirts. I also saw Elias Young, Punishment, Kingdom, and Jay Lethal shirts as well. They had a second stand as well that was selling a ton of ROH DVDs and fidget spinners. During intermission, The Kingdom was actually at the stand, trying to talk people out of buying Bullet Club shirts and buy their own.
Show 1
Kazarian starts the night by cutting a promo and calls out the fans for their lack of respect to himself and Christopher Daniels. He makes fun of the fan’s use of streamers, which of course causes some fans to throw streamers at him. He then makes fun of the fan’s stupid chants. Jonny Fairplay reported that people chanted “We love streamers” at this point, but everyone near me literally chanted “Stupid Chant,” which in my opinion, is better in this situation. He then threatened to ruin “what we love” before he called all of us stupid marks and mic-dropped out of the ring. Gret heel work in this promo and it got the fans excited for the show.
(1) Punishment Martinez defeated Flip Gordon in 8:00. This was a decent match. The move of the match came in Gordon’s entrance when he took off his pants while backflipping off the top-rope. Martinez won when he was dazed on top of the turnbuckle, but caught Gordon attempting a top-rope move, and hit him with an Avalanche Chokeslam for the pin. A good spot to end the match.
(2) Rhett Titus defeated Cheeseburger in 3:00. Titus hit Cheeseburger with a cheap-shot to start the match. Cheeseburger was making a quick comeback, but his rival (I can’t remember his name) came to interfere, which allowed Titus to win the match. Afterwards, Titus walked past a fan with an “I hate you” sign. Titus yanked it from the fan and ripped it up in front of him. This got a lot of heat from the fans.
-Dalton Castle came out on stage to confront Cabana. He suggested that Colt find two partners and challenge both him and The Boys for the six-man Tag Championships. Dalton states that this match will take place “next week” which did draw boos from the crowd. I’ll admit I have been caught in the WWE bubble, so I booed as well, forgetting about the multiple tapings that will take place. Dalton, hearing the boos, quickly amended that it will take place “at this building next week” which then quickly calmed down the crowd.
(3) Kenny King wrestled Kushida to a no contest in 8:00 so Kushida retained the ROH TV Championship. This was a hard-fought match. Kushida moved out the way from a Corkscrew Plancha from King, but luckily King was able to land on all fours to avoid a hard landing on the floor. This would be followed by Kushida hitting a hurricanrana from the outside into the turnbuckle for a hard-hitting spot. The two would go back into the ring for a couple more minutes with Kushida attempting the Kimura a couple more times before The Bullet Club (Adam Page and Marty Scurll) would interfere and end the match. King and Kushida would fight back on the Club’s assult and agree to team up for a match right away.
(4) Kenny King & Kushida defeated Hangman Page & Marty Scurll in 11:00. This was a pretty good match that got a “This is Awesome” chant from the crowd. The Club was on offense for the entire first half of the match before Kushida finally got the hot tag for the comeback. Here the match quickly picked up gears in which everyone essentially traded signature moves for the last few minutes before King got the pin.
Show 2
(1) Best Friends defeated Coast to Coast in 12:00. It was a fun match that mostly involved Best Friends making the crowd laugh with their offense. Nothing much to add here.
(2) Jay Brisco defeated Matt Taven by DQ in 11:00. The story of the match mostly involved Jay fighting off the other two members of Kingdom while fighting the third. One member came out in a walking boot and a crutch, but when Jay took his crutch to create an equalizer against the three members, the injured member took off his boot and reveled he was faking his injury. He then proceeded to attack Jay with the book to get Taven disqualified. All three members of The Kingdom them grabbed chairs and hit Jay with a triple Concerto after the match.
(3) Dalton Castle & The Boys defeated Colt Cabana & The Tempura Boys in 14:00 to retain the ROH Six-Man Tag Team Titles. This might have been match of the night. The crowd quickly fell in love with Dalton’s charisma and glamor, and cheered for him, while booing Cabana. The Boy’s stole the show during this match as they kept trying to illegally switch behind the ref’s back for comedy and became furniture for Dalton in order to taunt Cabana. After the match, Dalton asked Colt if he has his respect now after Dalton beat him three times. Colt agreed and all six-men shook hands to end the second show and to start intermission.
Show 3
(1) War Machine defeated Jonathan Gresham & Jay White in 10:00. This was another choice for the best match of the entire night. I would suggest watching this episode among the others for this match, though I will say it was probably more enjoyable when we didn’t know who was going to win. I have never seen War Machine before, so they definitely won me over with their surprisingly high level of athleticism.
(2) Josh Woods defeated Shane Taylor in 6:00. Taylor was getting a lot of heat in this match by bullying both the crowd and the referee. At one point, we heard Taylor say something inappropriate to the ref, and I heard the crowd chant towards Taylor. It almost sounded like “Watch Your Mouth, Boy,” but I sure hope I misheard them. Taylor grabs a chair towards the end of the match, but the ref took it from him before he can use it, and this allowed Woods to roll up Taylor for an upset win.
(3) The Young Bucks wrestled The Motor City Machine Guns to a No Contest in 13:00 so the Bucks retained the ROH Tag Team Championships. The crowd was behind the Young Bucks the entire time they were out there; it was a total superstar reaction. This match felt very similar to the TV title match earlier in the night. The two fought back and forth for 12 minutes, and The Young Bucks were just starting their Superkick party. They landed about two or three, when Kazarian fulfilled his earlier threat and jumped the barricade with Daniels to attack all four men to throw out the match. The match participants however, would eventually fight back and push Kazarian/Daniels out of the ring, and they would celebrate together in the ring with The Young Bucks proclaiming to the MCMG that they would get their rematch soon.
Show 4
(1) Jay Lethal defeated Beer City Bruiser in a no-DQ match in 13:00. The two both came on stage already fighting. Security guards followed to block the entranceway in order to prevent Silas Young from interfering. Most of the match involved the two brawling outside, using chairs and the barricade as weapons. The match ended when Lethal tied Bruiser to the bottom rope with tape and then proceeded to target his knee with chars and a keg. Lethal would win with the figure-four as he taunted Young the whole time to infuriate him.
(2) Bully Ray & Mark Brisco defeated Hangman Page & Cody by DQ in 11:00. This was a standard WWE-style main event tag match. It was back-and-forth the entire time, and each person was able to have their short moment in the match. Halfway through, Scurll came to interfere against Bully Ray, but before he could do anything, Jay Brisco came out and attacked Scurll. The two brawled throughout the arena before fighting towards the back for the end of the match. It looked as if Bully was going to get the win, but Kingdom came out and attacks both Bully Ray and Jay to give them a DQ victory.
After the match, Cody and Page fled during Kingdom’s beatdown. Jay Brisco came back out to save his brother and even up the score, but Kingdom still beat all three up. The three men grabbed a table and tried to put one of the Brisco brothers through it, but the other two got up and fight back. Two of the Kingdom members got thrown out of the ring, leaving one left to get triple Powerbombed through the table. Bully Ray got a microphone and thanked the crowd for coming out. He said that he knows it was a long night, but he confidently asked if the fans had a good time tonight. He then brought two kids into the ring, jokingly gave one a hard time for wearing a John Cena shirt, and then gave both kids each a shard of the broken table (which sounds completely dangerous, by the way). He raised their hands with the Briscos, and the show finally came to an end.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Considering this was my first time seeing ROH in person, I will say I enjoyed the experience. The fact that it was a TV taping, however, definitely dropped the quality of the show as opposed to a house show or a PPV. From bell to bell, and including the intermission, the whole experience lasted over five-and-a-half hours, and all of the big matches had interference and didn’t have a true ending. The value was good for the talent present, but I will probably only come back to an ROH show if it is a non-TV taping.
BEST REACTIONS…
(1) Young Buck (by far)
(2) Tie between Cody and Jay Brisco
(3) Kushida
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