ROH HITS & MISSES 5/7: Cody, Cole, Castle, Lethal, Daniels, Young Bucks, Doane, Mondo, Martinez, Bruiser

HITS

Matt Taven: Matt Taven cut a nice promo about being the first-ever “Grand Slam” champion in ROH history. Taven stated that he’s been the ROH TV Champion, ROH Tag Team Champion, Six-man Champion, and soon to be the ROH World Champion. Taven eluded to this on last week’s episode. Nice promo and leads to some interest in IF he can pull it off. I’d say it would be a surprise if so.

The Briscoes Promo without Bully Ray: Briscoe’s cut a quick promo talking about next week’s match against The Rebellion. These guys might be the most underrated wrestlers and talkers in wrestling today. I know I sound like a broken record, but in my eyes, it’s true. That said, I’m looking forward to next week’s match between The Briscoes & Bully Ray vs. The Rebellion.

Marty Scurrl Promo: Matt Sydal came after Scurrl recently. Scurll tried to retaliate last week. Sydal got a win under his belt last week also. Scurrl put Sydal on notice that Sydal isn’t taking the ROH TV Title from him. Good promo leading up to their upcoming match for the ROH TV Title.

Jay Lethal Confronts Christopher Daniels: After the match with Cole & Cody vs. Castle & Daniels discussed later in this column, Lethal confronts Daniels and is mad at Daniels that his upcoming ROH World Title match is a three-way match between Daniels, Lethal, and Cody. Cody comes out and gets involved in it. It’s hard to explain, but this leads to Lethal nailing Daniels and Cody with Lethal Injection. They go off air. While the match that preceded this did nothing for me, I did like this close of the show with these three.

MISSES

The Young Bucks vs. Mike Mondo & Ken Doane: Last week Mondo & Doane answered The Young Bucks open challenge for The Young Bucks ROH World Tag Titles. It took less than a minute before we got our first set of superkicks from The Young Bucks. The crowd was definitely pro Young Bucks here, which wasn’t a surprise. Matt Jackson spent most of the match getting worked over by Mondo and Doane. Matt finally made the hot tag to Nick. Nick came in and hit a bunch of his patented maneuvers. There was a very nice sequence where Nick missed a Swanton off the top rope and rolled through it. He got up, but Mondo hit Nick with a snapmare that drove Nick’s head into the canvas. It was a great looking maneuver that looked like it took a lot out of Nick. Eventually after a few superkicks to Doane and Mondo, The Young Bucks finished off Doane and Mondo with a Meltzer Driver. Average match for TV. Nothing spectacular overall. This was a follow-up from last week as The Young Bucks kicked off the challenge for their tag team titles. Good match that served its purpose; it just wasn’t anything special. I guess there still is some intrigue regarding who accepts their challenge next going forward.

Punishment Martinez vs. Beer City Bruiser: This was an old-fashioned slugfest between these two guys who are a mix of old school wrestlers and today’s new school ROH high flyers, so to say. I never get tire of seeing Bruiser hit his cannon ball off the ring apron to the floor on to his opponent. A man his size doing things like that or hitting his splash off the top rope is just enjoyable to watch. Punishment Martinez scared the heck out of me when he attempted to hit his patented dive over the corner to the outside. Martinez dove and barely hit Bruiser. Martinez nearly landed on his head. Back in the ring, Bruiser hit Martinez with three consecutive corner shots to Martinez with the last two being cannonballs to Martinez. Martinez eventually was able to get control of the match. Martinez hit his finisher and Bruiser was pinned, giving Martinez the victory. The match was okay and I am a big fan of Bruiser and Martinez, but it just felt like a match for the sake of having a match on this week’s ROH. This is no reflection on the two guys in the match as much as it is this was just a match for the sake of filling time. Additionally, although this might be in the “Miss” category, Silas Young and Colt Cabana with Ian Riccaboni on commentary was very entertaining during this match.

Adam Cole & Cody Rhodes vs. Dalton Castle & Christopher Daniels: We’ll just fast-forward to the mid-way point in the match. Cody and Cole at a few points woredk as a team early in this match and at other times they didn’t. Cole eventually abandoned Cody and left him out there by himself. But Cole, after leaving for a few minutes, ran back in and as Daniels was about to put Cody away and get the win for his team, Cole superkicked Daniels to the back of the head. Cody then pinned Daniels, so Cody and Cole got the win. The Young Bucks came out to celebrate with Cody and Cole. I really don’t know what I watched and why this was supposed to make any sense at all. I’m sure I’ll be corrected by some Bullet Club fans, but this match and the story being told didn’t make sense to me.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I don’t know any other way to say it but for the most part this felt like a throw away week for ROH. As a fan of ROH and someone who covers them week to week, I understand some shows just will not be as good as others. This week was the worst week we’ve seen in 2017. I think ROH has done a lot of good with their TV in 2017. For the most part they’ve done a good job of being episodic, something that I think was a missing in previous years from time to time. This was a week where if you missed it, I don’t think you missed much.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: ROH HITS & MISSES: The Kingdom, The Young Bucks, Sydal, Four-Way for ROH World Title shot

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.