1/16 ROH in Collinsville – Detailed Report on TV Title match, Young Bucks main event, more

ROH “Winter Warrior” Results
January 16, 2016
Collinsville, Ill. (St. Louis market)
Report by Dustin Motley, PWTorch reader

This was my first ROH show and it did not disappoint. There was a sold out crowd at the Gateway Center Arena. The crowd was hot all the way through.

(1) ROH tag champions War Machine (Ray Rowe & Hanson) beat Chris Sabin & Frankie Kazarian in a non-title match. War Machine was way over while Kazarian and Sabin had a lot of heat for mentioning the Rams moving. Fun match with War Machine winning easily with their finisher.

(2) Michael Elgin beat Adam Page. Before the match, B.J. Whittmer attacked Page and cut a promo about Page being ungrateful before Elgin told Whitmer he came here to fight and unless he wanted to fight, he should leave. Page and Elgin then had a decent match. It went a little too long, but good striking and power offense by Elgin. Also, Page was a good face. After the match, Elgin and Page shook hands and Page thanked Elgin.

It was time for Roderick Strong vs. The World! Strong came out and cut a heel promo saying he beat Curry Man last night and he wanted an actual challenge. He said he would finish the match in five minutes or less. Cheeseburger then came out to a huge pop.

(3) ROH TV champion Roderick Strong beat Cheeseburger to retain the ROH TV Title. Cheeseburger hit a palm strike for a two count. Cheeseburger got a bit of offense in before Strong took over with heel offense and dirty tactics. Cheeseburger came back, then after a few questionable counts by the ref, Strong hit a knee and made Cheeseburger pass out to the Stronghold. Good match not surprisingly from Strong, but it’s obvious he was in full heel mode. After the match, he mocked Cheeseburger and the crowd.

(4) The Briscoes beat Silas Young & Beer City Bruisers. Good, fun, hard-hitting match. Nothing technically sound about it, but everyone hit each other hard. Silas kept mouthing toward people in the crowd with anybody wearing a Dalton Castle shirt. Mark Briacoe took a lot of the punishment, but the match ended with Jay hitting a Jay Driller on Brawler, then Mark hit the Kung Fu Elbow. Nice match. Nothing offensive.

Intermission time. Coming out of intermission, Will Ferrara squashed a local wrestler. Nothing to it.

(5) Dalton Castle beat Delirious. Before match, Delirious did some weird stuff. He even yelled in my face and took my sock cap and threw it in the crowd. Not cool, Delirious. Castle and the boys were way over. A lot of funny stuff here like Delirious chasing the boys and even turning one into a second Delirious. Not a technically-sound match, surprisingly, with Castle in there, but Delirious got no offense and Castle won with his finisher. A lot of fun for the crowd but very little wrestling.

(6) ReDragon (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) beat All Night Express (Rhett Titus & Kenny King). Mixed reaction to ANX while ReDragon (especially O’Reilly) was way over. Nice tag match. O’Reilly took a lot of punishment from ANX, and it was a good, technical, and hard-hitting tag match. Everyone shined in the match. The match ended with Chasing the Dragon.

(7) Adam Cole beat Moose. Most of the crowd was for Cole. Only a few for Moose. Cole was in the lead for most and took most of the offense. They both played to the crowd a bit too much, and Cole carried Moose while Moose did his hard-hitting offense, including great dropkicks and top rope stuff. Cole stole the match with Moose missing the spear and Cole wrapping him in a schoolboy with a hook of the tights.

(8) The Young Bucks (Nick & Matt Jackson) beat Alex Shelley & A.C.H. in a tag team main event. A.C.H got a huge ovation, Shelley was a bit over, and the Bucks were over-the-top over. Best match of the night. Everyone got offense in and a lot of fun spots with the Bucks. The Bucks played up to the crowd and to the ref. Shelley was in peril for a bit until ACH got the tag. He was on fire until the Bucks went to Superkick City. They hit the Indy Driver for the win.

Post-match, the Bucks cut a promo thanking them for the match and saying that even though there are rumors of other Bullet Club members leaving, they are staying in ROH. Huge pop. A.C.H. then cut a great heartfelt promo to finish the show.

Overall Thoughts: Great show with enough fun spotty stuff and technical, hard-hitting wrestling. The crowd was red-hot for it all, but mostly the main event. All matches were at least not offensive. Too many tag matches, overall, but that was okay since they all worked great. For my first ROH show, I was happy.