ROH HITS & MISSES 12/10: ROH TV Title Match, The Addiction, WarBeard Hanson, The Briscoes, Taven vs. Lethal, ROH World Title Contract Signing

HITS

Caprice Coleman (w/Shane Taylor) vs. Kenny King: The winner of this match will be the fourth entrant into the ROH World TV title match at Final Battle next week. On to the match, Taylor comes out with Coleman and Coleman gives him an envelop as they come down the entrance ramp to the ring. This was a good back and forth match between King and Coleman. There were some great near-falls especially Coleman’s top rope leg drop on to King. It looked great and while this was filmed weeks ago, I paused for a second and thought that could’ve been the finish. King ends up retaining the ROH TV title by defeating Coleman. However, at the end of the match Punishment Martinez and Taylor attack and lay out King. Sylas Young, who was at the announce table, also joins in on the fun and attacks King. Good match and a good end to the match with all four guys that will be in the 4-way ROH TV title mixing it up as we go to commercial. I think King retains at Final Battle but I could see a situation where Young wins the title also.

The Addiction: About two weeks ago, a ringside fan was injured at the hands of The Addiction which left Ray Rowe suspended. The Addiction tell us that they don’t give a care about the fan and that War Machine was in the wrong and War Machine are the ones to blame. The Addiction also continued verbally assaulting the ROH fans during this promo. WarBeard Hanson has heard enough when he comes out and attacks The Addiction. It doesn’t take long for The Addiction to take down Hanson since it’s two on one. Kazarian handcuffs Hanson to the second rope and Daniels pulls out a box cutter and threatens to cut Hanson’s beard. Daniels does chop off a very small amount and is about to do more damage when ROH security come out to help Hanson. The three security guys create a diversion and distraction. One of the security guys also frees Hanson. Once Hanson is freed, he chases The Addiction away. We must remember this is the go home show before Final Battle and I felt this was another good segment leading into the match between The Addiction and War Machine. At this point nothing should be settled since we’re on the doorsteps of the PPV. Good segment and I look forward to seeing what happens with these teams at Final Battle.

The Briscoes: Jay Briscoes cuts another fantastic promo. I’ll save you the play-by-play and tell you that Jay Briscoe calls out Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer and calls them a couple of female dogs. Dreamer and Bully are in the building though and they head towards the ring. An army of security guards holds Bully and Dreamer back. Joe Koff even comes out and tells Bully and Dreamer to go to the back because this isn’t the time or the place for this match. Jay Briscoe then tells Bully and Dreamer, “Who would’ve thought that they would have seen the day when Bully Ray and Dreamer would take orders from an old man.” Koff didn’t take too kind to this and calls for an extreme rules and hardcore match between Bully, Dreamer, and The Briscoes at Final Battle. The segment ends with the two teams being pulled apart after they mix it up for 30 seconds. Once again, this was done great. They’ve built this match up great over the last month. We knew this was coming and this will be settled in a week at Final Battle.

Matt Taven (w/The Kingdom’s Marseglia & O’Ryan) vs. Jay Lethal: Lethal and Taven didn’t waste any time whatsoever. From the start of the match they are slugging it out and it’s a great main event. Scurll is on commentary during the match and he tries to help by going to ringside late in the match and gives Lethal his umbrella to use on Taven. Lethal throws it on the ground outside the ring but when he turns his back, Taven rolls up Lethal and Taven gets the win. This was a good match, but I got a little lost with how they finished this. I’d like to think Lethal is smart enough to not just turn his back on Taven like that. While the match was fantastic, the finish left me scratching my head. I’ll hold judgement until I see Final Battle next week as to what happens in the next step of this feud but the finished was perplexing and didn’t make sense to me. For now, I put it in the Hits section but I was on the fence about this one.

ROH World Title Contract Signing: Cody is out there with Brandi sipping on wine and eating cheese while also looking like his father did on NWA WCW Saturday night on December 15, 1985 with a fur coat on. The first part of the signing is Cody being a great schmuck. Castle signs the contract but before doing so tells Cody that Cody is overrated and overpaid. Cody signs the contract and then they stare each other down as we sign off. It wasn’t the greatest segment, but I liked Castle’s dig when he told Cody he was overrated and overpaid. I feel like that line of thinking resonates with some fans of ROH. Good segment and we’ll have to tune in to Final Battle to see who wins.

MISSES

The Kingdom: I like the Kingdom. I think as a trio they’re solid. But for the love of all things in life, can we eliminate the baseball bat and axe at ringside. You could literally murder a human being with both objects with relative ease. I’ll do you even one better. Keep the baseball bat. You can at least work that into a match. But the axe is just not needed. If you really whacked someone with that axe you would murder the person. I don’t want to come off the wrong way because I really like all three of these guys, but the axe just does not make sense. At one-point Ian Riccaboni even mentions something to the affect of “what’s he going to do with that thing? Chop someone’s arm off.” Marseglia is very talented. He can be the horror king without an axe and I wish they would just eliminate at least the axe from ringside.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This show was what I expected. We’re only a week away from Final Battle. Going in I knew that we would likely not progress anything too much since everything was set up weeks ago at this point. With that said, I thought ROH did a good job of having a few quality matches with every storyline having an open end where we need to watch Final Battle to see how everything either culminates or moves to the next step in the feud. I think this has been a great year for ROH in terms of how they’ve booked their TV weekly. With all that said, Final Battle should be a good PPV and I’d recommend checking it out.

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. Also, check out his old school wrestling podcasts at tinyurl.com/BTTPod.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S REPORT: ROH HITS & MISSES 12/3: Bruiser vs. Scurll, Castle, Briscoes Invade 3D Academy, Coleman’s Pulpit, ROH Tag Title Match, Gordon vs. Page