By Darren Gutteridge
ROH TV Hits
Japanese Tour videos: I’m a sucker for these video packages. It’s great seeing a different culture, and seeing the talent in a location that isn’t a ring or the ROH interview set. I just wish there were more. Hell, I wish we just had an hour of “Dalton Castle Does Weird Things Around Japan.” I don’t care how wrong that sounds.
Roderick Strong vs. Tomohiro Ishii for the ROH TV Title: Unfortunately, this match had two things going against it from the start that meant I was never going to love it. Firstly, anybody who watched ROH TV in the past two months knows that Ishii won. And the Japanese style is still something alien to me, so certain aspects don’t appeal (in particular the long chop fests, which bore me to tears). Nevertheless, a strong home stretch makes this match a Hit.
Dalton Castle and Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Jushin Liger and Matt Sydal: Despite best efforts, this was at best an OK tag match, nudged over the line for a Hit thanks to the antics of Castle. It was fun seeing him in a culture you just know would love him if he was a New Japan regular. Other than that though, the action was fairly forgettable.
ROH TV Misses
Overall Show: Though the balance is skewed towards Hits, none of them were strong. Furthermore, this content is two months old, so nothing felt consequential. With Global Wars coming up, you could forgive ROH for choosing to air New Japan-centric footage, but surely the appeal of Global Wars is seeing New Japan talent face off against ROH talent, so why lead into it by showing exactly that on free TV?
Delirious vs. Gedo: ROH has a problem with character investment with some of their own talent, up to and including their own ROH Tag Team Champions. Shows like this only increase that problem tenfold. As a regular ROH TV viewer, I know nothing about Delirious or Gedo, and this was nowhere near the level of match necessary for me to get invested. Plus there is always the ever present mental nudges that Delirious, the gibberish speaking lunatic, is the ROH booker.
Thanks for reading. If you have any thoughts or opinions on this article, share them with me via Twitter.com/TheGutteridge. You can also check out my website, TheGutteridgeLog.co.uk
Be the first to comment