ROH HITS & MISSES 9/23: Honor Rumble, QT Marshall, Josh Woods, Coleman’s Pulpit

HITS

Coleman’s Pulpit: I was really looking forward to both Jay and Mark Briscoe making an appearance. Unfortunately, Mark was the only Briscoe on Coleman’s Pulpit due to the actions of Jay at Death Before Dishonor where Jay turned on Bully Ray. While Mark seemed surprised at Jay’s actions, Mark certainly didn’t sound like he was going to side with Bully Ray. It sounds like Mark will still be on Jay’s side. Overall, this was a weird segment. Since this is not produced in front of a live crowd, I was hoping that we could get Jay’s reaction to what happened before Death Before Dishonor even though it would’ve been recorded beforehand. While I was fine with this segment, I think this would’ve made it more impactful. I’m still in the camp that a segment like Coleman’s Pulpit can be a successful weekly or every other week segment when done right. Although not a great segment this week, overall, I think it was fine.

Honor Rumble: I thought the Honor Rumble was a good thing to do since it was filmed before Death Before Dishonor and would award a future match for the ROH World Title to the winner. With a match like this, you are hiding the fact that this was filmed weeks ago but still making it mean something post-PPV. I had a couple of notes during the match. I thought Cody’s smug attitude on commentary was good and he fit in well as a guest commentator with Ian Riccaboni and BJ Whitmer. I felt the Honor Rumble was overall done well. I felt like guys like Shane Taylor and Flip Gordon were given a good amount of time in the Rumble and they had a good showing. Taylor hung around for a while before it took two guys to eliminate him when War Machine sent him out. Also, I liked that Flip Gordon ended up being one of the final four in the Rumble. Unfortunately, Flip made a young mistake towards the end with a high-risk maneuver that got him eliminated. Additionally, there was the surprise of seeing Glacier of WCW fame and hearing Ian Riccaboni on commentary say, “IT’S FREEZING OVER HERE GUYS” when Glacier came out. On to the finish of this thing. I’m an old school wrestling fan and I loved the finish. It reminded me of a finish Jim Cornette did in Smoky Mountain Wrestling in 1992 at his Mountain Mayhem Battle Royal which had similar rules to this. Lethal and Kazarian were the last two men in the ring. Christopher Daniels comes out and distracts the referee. With Todd Sinclair being distracted, Lethal eliminates Kazarian but Sinclair doesn’t see it. Kazarian gets back into the ring. Lethal soon after is eliminated and Kazarian gets the win and will face Cody next week for the ROH World title. Daniels cuts a promo on the ungrateful ROH fans as we go off air.

MISSES

Josh Woods vs. QT Marshall: A few weeks ago, QT Marshall was shown handing a check to Shane Taylor after Taylor knocked out Woods. I’m glad ROH aired that clip so that we would recall what may be causing issues with these two. This match was fine. Nothing exceptional but it was fine. The guys worked hard and put on a good match. The unfortunate part is that it feels like there isn’t much long term that’ll happen from this. It felt like this was a match to make sure there was content the weekend of Death Before Dishonor. If this ends up being a big-time feud going forward, I will admit I was wrong.

Final Thoughts

For a weekend after Death Before Dishonor, I feel that ROH did a good job of putting a show out that bought them a week of time. I’ve mentioned it plenty of times before that filming these weeks in advance creates challenges during the weeks where there is a PPV. Unlike last year, ROH did give us a “new” week of programming and didn’t mail in the week of a PPV which again had been done a lot in previous years. I credit ROH for planning this as well as they can in advance while at the same time building towards the PPV that aired the day or a few days before.

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.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: ROH HITS & MISSES 9/16: Cody’s Ring of Honor, Whitmer & Riccaboni on commentary, Briscoes vs. Kingdom, more