ROH HITS & MISSES 11/18: Castle-Taven-The Kingdom, Helms vs. Scurll, Three-Way Tag Match for the ROH World Tag Team Titles

HITS

Dalton Castle, Taven, and The Kingdom: This started out as Castle discussing how hard he worked to get back after dealing with all of the injuries he faced this year that ultimately cost him a nice run with the ROH World Title. Castle goes on to explain that he is now back, and he wants Jay Lethal and the ROH World Title. The in-ring promo was interrupted by Matt Taven. Taven delivered a very good promo effectively telling Castle that Castle could not handle the pressure of being the world champion (That line was outstanding and one of the many reasons Taven is so good). Taven ends the promo telling Castle he has a surprise for him. It is then that Vinny Marseglia releases the balloons and attacks Castle and The Boys. Taven pounces on a distracted Castle. TK O’Ryan comes to assist also and The Kingdom bury Castle underneath a few chairs before each blasting him with a chair shot as he lay under the chairs. A very good segment overall where I thought Taven shined especially when he told Castle he could not handle the pressure of being champion and that’s when his body broke down.

Marty Scurll and Shane Helms Feud Recap: Nice recap of the saga that has continued between Helms and Scurll over the last few months. I think this feud has been done well on ROH TV over the last few months.

Marty Scurll vs. Shane Helms: The opening of this match was great. Making his way down the ramps was Helms. Or was it? No, it was Delirious dressed as Helms. As Scurll stares towards who he believes is Helms coming to the ring, Helms goes on the attack and takes control early. Unfortunately, when they come back from the first commercial break, Scurll is in complete control as he beats on Helms with numerous umbrella shots to Helms back. From that point, the match felt flat for a small portion of the middle of it. However, the crowd reacted with enthusiasm when Scurll launched Helms from the ring apron through a table on the floor. Scurll brought the crowd back to life when he dumped a bag of thumb tacks on the canvas which was followed by a Helms choke slam to Scurll on to the thumb tacks that only got a 2 count. Scurll fights back though and grabs a handful of thumb tacks. Scurll poured the tacks into Helms mouth and then super kicks Helms in the face. I have to say, I have not seen anything like that before. Scurll then hits Helms with a finisher and Scurll wins. It might not have been a hot crowd from start to finish but it ended up being a nice match between the two. I guess we can assume their feud is over now, but you never know.

Brandi Rhodes Update: Brandi Rhodes gave an update on her broken clavicle that she suffered a few months ago. Brandi went through how the injury happened, her surgery, the fact that she had 9 screws placed into her clavicle, the successful bone growth and healing of her clavicle, and that she has now been cleared to wrestle again. I am not sure what the future holds for her as it pertains to the Women of Honor division in ROH, but it is good to see Brandi has healed up and can pursue her career as a wrestler. I still think she has a long way to go but am glad she has recovered.

SCU (Scorpio Sky subbing for the injured Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) vs. The Briscoes (Mark & Jay Briscoe) for the ROH World Tag Team Titles: This match had The Briscoes, SCU, and Young Bucks in it. The name value alone made it a hit. Throw in it being a 3-way tag match for the ROH World Tag Team Titles and you have a recipe for success. None of the teams disappointed. My biggest complaint is we once again get a referee bump when Paul Turner gets knocked down for a good portion of the match. At least this time he recovered and was able to finish. I only mention this because referee bumps seem to be a constant in important ROH matches. Towards the end we had a very close near fall where Kazarian gets a 2.75 count on Mark Briscoe. That was followed by The Briscoes seemingly taking control of the match. Unfortunately, as Jay Briscoe attempted to throw a chair at Kazarian, the chair hits Mark and knocks him silly. Sky then hits a cutter on to Jay. Then, Sky and Kazarian hit an assisted Lung Blower on Mark Briscoe. And, in what I felt was a shocker, we see SCU defeat The Briscoes and SCU become your new ROH World Tag Team champions. Daniels comes out with a neck brace on to celebrate with SCU. SCU was supposed to be on their way out in 2018 so I guess we will have to stay tuned to see what happens next. I thought this was a good main event with a shocking ending. I always avoid spoilers if at all possible, so this definitely was a surprise.

MISSES

Main Event #WatchROHSecondHalfOfOurDoubleMainEventHereInPhiladelphiaTheCityOfBrotherlyLove: I am quite sure this was a joke because of the utter ridiculousness of the length of this hashtag in the main event which is why I had to mention it. Shout out to ROH for attempting to do something so ridiculous with this hashtag that someone noticed and mentioned it in a review because it worked. This was so long and ridiculous that it was awesome. I also realize after checking out twitter that I am not the only one who enjoyed this rather ridiculous hashtag.

Final Thoughts

I thought this was a solid episode. I really enjoyed the main event. As I said above, I was surprised since I was able to avoid any of the spoilers from this taping.

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 and you can check out his old school wrestling podcasts at tinyurl.com/BTTPod

CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: ROH HITS & MISSES 11/11: Taylor vs. Jeff Cobb, The Bouncers vs. Cheeseburger & Isom, SoCal Uncensored, The Kingdom vs. Lethal, Gresham, & Castle