Gutteridge’s Ring of Honor TV Hit List: The Briscoes vs. Jay White and Lio Rush, Dalton Castle vs. Caprice Coleman, and Donovan Dijak vs. Manny Lemons, The Bullet Club open the show

By Darren Gutteridge

ROH TV Hits

The Briscoes vs. Lio Rush and Jay White: What a great tag match, once again showing why when the topic of ROH’s MVP comes up, The Briscoes have to be in the conversation. Rush and White could have been given a few more close two counts, or even been given the win by pinning Mark Briscoe, but they had a hell of a showing here, and it doesn’t feel like White’s business with Jay Briscoe is settled yet.

Donovan Dijak vs. Manny Lemon: A good old fashioned squash match is a rare thing on ROH, so I’m more than OK when they wheel it out for the right purpose. For example, it let Dijak look dominant before his future TV Title shot. Plus Manny Lemons is a terrible name. Therefore, Manny Lemons is a terrific jobber name. You don’t remember your Johnny Smiths, but you remember your Manny Lemons.

ROH TV Misses

Dalton Castle vs. Caprice Coleman: I was going to give this a minor Hit, as the match was watchable, but one or two small things made me place it on this side of the line. For one, the way the match was edited made it seem like a Castle squash, which was very odd. Then, despite supposedly being against this type of thing in wrestling (AKA it is the entire crux of his gimmick), Coleman was clowning around doing the peacock pose with Castle. Both of these are small things, but they were enough to bring me out of the match and frown.

Bullet Club opening: The actual content of the promo from Adam Cole, and his back and forth with Jay Lethal, was fine. It set the table for the run into All Star Extravaganza nicely. However, once again the ever growing shadow of New Japan loomed over this come the end. Naito and Evil may be feuding with Bullet Club in New Japan, but the vast majority of the ROH audience won’t know that, nor care. Had this been a one off I’d be fine with it (excited even), but every show now seems to be more and more about New Japan than ROH. Someone needs to introduce the phrase “Diminishing returns” to the booking committee.

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