ROH "The Golden Dream"
Cincinnati, Ohio at Masonic Center
Report by Dot Net Member Jeremy Moses

Estimated Attendance: 750

Before the show, there were meet and greets with Kevin Steen, World Champion Adam Cole, hometown boy BJ Whitmer and Maria Kanellis. Whitmer showed interest in my roller derby shirt (before tonight, I didn't own any ROH clothing). Then, right before the show started, a Q&A was held with ROH Matchmaker Nigel McGuiness. Two major highlights from this were a younger person who asked if he could have a match with Cheeseburger (I liked that); and Cliff Compton interrupted to basically demand that he get his hands on Kevin Steen. That didn't happen.

At the start of a show, we got a promo segment. McGuiness came back out to hype the show. Jay Briscoe interrupted to lobby to be in the world title match between Adam Cole and Michael Elgin at Final Battle. Elgin came out and trashed Briscoe. Kevin Steen came out after that to make HIS case to be in the title match. This eventually led to McGuiness deciding that the winner of the main event would be inserted into the Cole vs. Elgin match to make it a Triple Threat.

I should note that I didn't catch many of the finishers. I definitely know who won, but that's all for most of these.

1. Bobby Fish defeated Mike Posey. Decent match. Got things going on somewhat the right foot. Started slow but picked up into the finish.

2. Kyle O'Reilly defeated Cory Hollis and RedDragon retains the ROH Tag Team Titles. Another good match. I must make a comment here... I still don't understand why they had to go with this.

3. Michael Elgin defeated Silas Young. A match that saw the crowd very much pro-Elgin.

4. Davey Richards defeated ACH. A contest that may be a reason I have no voice tomorrow. This was AMAZING, and the Cincinnati crowd was HOT! This sent us into intermission.

During intermission, I bought a Kevin Steen "Mr Wrestling" shirt for $20 and got Kanellis' autograph. She wasn't at the table when I arrived, but fans had a chance to see her at intermission. Well done by ROH to allow that.

5. Jimmy Jacobs defeated Roderick Strong to earn a shot at Adam Cole's World Championship in 2 weeks in Dearborn, Michigan. Jacobs pulled out all the stops including a suicide dive that put him almost all the way up the entranceway.

6. Matt Taven defeated Adam Page to retain the ROH World Television Championship. An amazing match.

Before the next match, Maria Kanellis came out. She said that the TV championship was beneath Michael Bennett and that he was focused on getting his hands on Steen.

7. Tommaso Ciampa beat Mark Briscoe and Jay Lethal in a Triple Threat Match to earn a shot at Matt Taven and the ROH TV Championship at Final Battle. The pivotal moment in this match was when Jay Lethal dove outside to attack Taven, who was doing commentary. While this was going on, Ciampa hit his finisher on Briscoe to win.

8. Jay Briscoe defeated Kevin Steen. As a result, Briscoe will be part of the World Title Match at Final Battle. The finish came when Maria Kanellis came out and distracted the referee. Briscoe then hit a piledriver for the win.

Post match, all hell broke loose! Briscoe and Cole began jawing at one another. Michael Elgin then came out, and things escalated VERY quickly as he and Briscoe brawled all over the ring. As this was broken up, Steen chased Kanellis back out to the ring, but she got away. At that point, Steen started package piledriving everyone he could get his hands on, before cutting a final promo in which he said that whoever was champion after Final Battle was on notice that he was coming for the title. This concluded the show. As I was leaving, BJ Whitmer was thanking fans for coming out. Nice touch. Whitmer noted to me that it didn't appear to be a sellout (the February event was), but the crowd was still great! I enjoyed myself. No return date announced.

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