ROH HITS & MISSES 10/21: Scurll vs. White, The Addiction, Jay Briscoe confronts Mark Briscoe, Fatal Four-way

HITS

Marty Scurll vs. Jay White: This is a darn good matchup to kick off the show. Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t remember any build up for these two coming into this week’s ROH episode. The first few minutes of this find these two feeling each other out as one might expect. Scurll uses some nice old school heel tactics such as an eye poke and feet on the ropes during a pin attempt to gain the advantage on White. White quickly takes back over though in this rather lengthy opening bout. I’m not complaining when I say lengthy. I’m just pointing out that they gave these guys a lot of time to go out there and put on a fantastic match. Scurll ultimately gets the win at the end when he throws his umbrella at White who quickly gives it to the referee but as the referee goes to throw the umbrella out of the ring, Scurll punts White in the groin and then Scurll cradles White to get the victory. Very good opening match.

The Addiction Promo: Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian are doing just what I expected after last week and they’re furthering the feud with Jay Lethal and Kushida. This was what it needed to be which is short and to the point. I generally like these short promos during ROH that quickly further their storylines and angles.

Jay Lethal Promo: Lethal defends Ring of Honor and he also ties in why he helped Kushida out last week. Lethal talks about at the Honor Rumble how Kazarian and Daniels costed him a shot at the ROH World title. Therefore, Lethal wants some payback and in doing so he fights for what ROH stands for and will not allow Kazarian and Daniels to reign havoc on the promotion. I really like how they tied in the Honor Rumble and what Lethal did last week. This promo was perfect. Nothing loud, nothing brash, just facts presented from one of the best there is today in Lethal.

The Dawgs (Will Ferrara & Rhett Titus) vs. The Tempura Boyz: After watching The Dawgs on Coleman’s Pulpit last week, I was looking forward to this. Not that it’s some super-hot angle at this stage but more of the fact that Ferrara & Titus seem to have decent chemistry together at this stage as a team. As the match opens, I enjoyed the rather comical moment from Cabana and Riccaboni. Riccaboni says Ferrara wants to be known as Big Willie. Cabana and Riccaboni can’t hold it together and then Cabana says something about little Willie. Sorry but it’s the little things like that on commentary that entertain some of us. They went nowhere with it but that moment and the chemistry of the two playing off each other gave me a laugh. As far as the match goes, Riccaboni recaps a recent match between these two teams where The Dawgs got the best of the Tempura Boyz by using some underhanded tactics. I always like this because it shows that this isn’t a promotion just throwing a couple of wrestlers together for the purpose of having a TV match. There usually is some type of friction or story to go along with the match up. This really was a good match. There were a few times when I thought The Tempura Boyz would get the win but when it was all said and done, The Dawgs were too much for The Tempura Boyz. The Dawgs get the win in a good match.

Shane Taylor vs. Chuckie T vs. Punishment Martinez vs. Mark Briscoe: As expected, there’s always a lot of action in one of these four-way matches in ROH. This match didn’t disappoint. The best part about this match going into it for me was that I thought that each guy had an equal shot of winning. I enjoyed Shane Taylor and Punishment Martinez squaring off a few times. I think both are big future stars for ROH with Martinez ahead in that respect right now. Still, both have a positive trajectory. In the end though, longtime ROH veteran Mark Briscoe gets the victory in the match and will get a shot at the ROH TV Title.

Jay Briscoe Confronts Mark Briscoe: After Mark wins his match, Jay comes out to confront Mark. Jay asked Mark if his last name was still Briscoe. Mark does say yes. Jay then wants to know if they’re still going to do the tag team thing or if Mark is now a singles wrestler. Mark steadily is looking at Jay like he is crazy, and that Jay is the one who’s not thinking rationally. After last week when Mark consoles Bully Ray, I do get why this happened and I’m more invested in what happens with these two than how the Bully Ray story plays out. This was a good close to the show though because it left some suspense in the air about where we go from here with these two.

MISSES

Cody and The Bullet Club Promo: A joke was made about Cody buying a new Mercedes. Then there was something about the Mercedes being big. And one of the Young Bucks said how big. Which the promo ended with uncontrollable laughter by everyone. In short, this was a sad attempt at humor and was pointless. But that wasn’t the best of it. They went to commercial during the laughter and then came back to see The Bullet Club sucking air from so much laughter. Completely pointless segment. And don’t give me the “they were getting heat” because they’re faces with most of the audience. I like ROH, so I take the good with the bad. As I like to usually say on my shows weekly, everything can’t be a homerun. This was not only not a home run, it was strike out where the guy was caught looking on all three strikes.

FINAL THOUGHTS

You take away that terrible Bullet Club segment before the main event and this was a very good episode. If I were to rate it on a scale of “A” through “F,” I’d easily give this episode an “A.” Solid opening match with Scurll and White, followed by nice and short promos by Lethal and The Addiction, and then capped off with a good main event four-way match.

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 10/14: Kazarian, Daniels, Scorpio Sky, Kushida, Cody Signs His ROH Contract, Cheeseburger, The Kingdom