ROH HITS & MISSES 7/30: The highs and lows of ROH’s latest TV show including Gracia vs. Alize, Mazzerati vs. Savoy, Rok-C vs. Sakai

-The show opened with a taped segment with Maria Kanellis hyping the upcoming Women’s Championship Tournament and used the opportunity to introduce Chelsea Green (yup her) as a new acquisition for ROH. Green came out to an on-screen graphic “Hot Mess” and looking very good and strong, announced that we wouldn’t have to wait 90 days, but just 30 days until she gets a cast off her wrist for her to make and take the Women’s division to new heights, apparently not able to be part of the tournament. This was a quick (and pre-recorded segments, and a couple of cuts were evident) but good opening promo, and Green brought a lot of energy, so I’d call this a moderate hit.

– Next up was Quinn McKay at her desk setting the stage for the show tonight, featuring the Women’s Tournament matches while also blowing her own horn. Nothing special here, but a nice set up for the rest of the show.

– An overall general note here: Before each of the matches on tonight’s show we got a well-produced video segment interlacing the two wrestlers competing in the match. These were very well done, as they were recorded the wrestlers had their best foot forward and it really helped to introduce them to the audience and helped with creating a rooting interest for the match. These video pre-match promos were all hits in the flow of the show.

– Miranda Alize (Lucha Baddie) vs. Alex Gracia (Pink Dream): The promos cast Gracia as the underdog, while Alize was the more confident (almost arrogant) heel, I guess, but was good to help us view the match. I know that the wrestlers are trained a certain way, but one complaint I had up front here was that during their entrances, both wrestlers played way too much to the non-existent crowd. (I can not wait for the return of a crowd for ROH, they really need it.) Lots of Lucha-style moves and some good strikes, but there were several moves where it was obvious that it was a choreographed movement as one wrestler waited in position for the other. On one hurricanranna move, Alize did the flip way after Gracia had already disconnected from her. As the match progressed the brutality of the strikes was turned up and both wrestlers sold well for each other. The end of the match moved to its collusion well, with several fast paced near-falls for each wrestler until the finally finishing move, a very good-looking knee to the face of a seating Gracia by Alize to take her out and secure the pin. In no way a five-star classic, but the match was fast-paced enough, and the wrestlers had interesting move sets and sold well, that I was drawn in and excited by the near falls and the ultimate finish. Rack this one up as a hit.

– Mazzerati vs. Nicole Savoy (Queen of the Suplex): Big negative mark right out of the gate, playing up Mazzerati’s difficult youth with drugs and gangs, but making it clear she has been “clean” for 13 years and that wrestling was her ticket out. Ugh! Another negative: as the match started there was roughly a minute of mid-ring trash talking and posing that was pretty stupid. So far, leading up to the first break, the match is not shaping up well, with mediocre grappling and mat wrestling that is not inspiring much excitement (would crowds help?). Mazzerati and Savoy did not seem to have a lot of chemistry in terms of working together to tell a story, and Mazzerati sold vocally way too much while in various holds. My feeling was while watching the match that with a different opponent, Savoy could really deliver a strong match, and Mazzerati appears to need more of a ring general to get the most out of her. This one was a miss. Not terrible, just a little too slow and disjointed. I think both wrestlers are solid, they just aren’t great together. A year from now, working together, they might put on a great match, but not tonight.

– Rok-C (The Prodigy) vs. Sumie Sakai. They billed this one as the young (19) up and comer (Rok-C) vs. the veteran former champion (Sumie). Funny bit at the beginning with Sumie clapping and looking around like she was getting the audience pumped up. What was fun, was, that she had a grin on her face acknowledging that she knew what she was doing was supposed to be funny. I liked it. The action was fast and both wrestlers were making moves and were being supported in what they were doing by the other wrestler. So far through the match, the story being told was that Rok-C is a confident your wrestler showing her stuff, but Sumie was the experienced pro who could beat her. There were a couple of moves with some “light”, but they quickly moved to the next moves enabling them to cover up the missed move. The middle of the match was the older pro taking it to the youngster forcing Rok-C to fight from underneath to ultimately overcome as they moved into the end phases of the match. After several near-falls by both wrestlers, the youngster was finally able to catch the veteran in a mistake and tie her up for the win. This was a good match with a lot of fast action, interesting moves and a very strong story line (Youngster vs. a Veteran) that the announce team did a great job of going back to adding some nice salt and pepper to the match. A strong hit here.

FINAL THOUGHTS

– Overall, this week, ROH had a hit. Yes, the second match was a bit clunky and there were some missed moves in all the matches that took away a little bit. But the introduction videos were excellent and the wrestlers, especially the final match between Rok-C and Sumie, really seemed to be working hard and put on a good show.

– Ultimately, it is hard to completely judge ROH right now as without a crowd building excitement is difficult and I give them a pass on that. This division looks strong for ROH if this week is any indication, and I am looking forward to the upcoming tournament matches over the next few weeks.

– That is all for now, take care and be safe, see you all next week.