By Jason Powell, Prowrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
ROH War of the Worlds (Night Two)
Toronto, Ontario at Ted Reeve Arena
Report by Dot Net reader Mike Beauvais
The show took place at the Ted Reeve Arena, which is ROH’s regular Toronto spot. It was a sellout of about 1,500. The building opened early for a meet-and-greet with virtually all of the talent there signing and taking photos.
1. “The Dawgs” Rhett Titus and Will Ferrera defeated The Boys (Brandon and Brent). Quick opener to get the crowd going. The story throughout was that Titus would continually bully Ferrera about his size and call himself “The Big Dawg.” After the Boys’ attempt at twin magic failed, Titus got the win for his team with a frog splash.
2. “Switchblade” Jay White defeated Punishment Martinez to retain the IWGP United States Championship. “Switchblade” chants for White to start. Martinez hit a number of power moves, including a burning hammer, but he couldn’t seem to put White away. He got frustrated by this and grabbed a chair, but before he was able to use it, Adam Page ran down to take it from him. The distraction allowed White to hit the Blade Runner for the win. White then mockingly thanked Hangman for his help.
Bully Ray came out and immediately began complaining about the streamers fans throw into the ring at ROH shows. Gesturing at the streamers in the ring, he said, “This is stupid.” Well, naturally, this meant that Bully Ray would get absolutely bombarded by streamers afterwards. The dude is a pro because he was getting hit in the head and the face with them and he didn’t break once. He didn’t even crack a smile. He called the fans “entitled millennial snowflakes” and demanded a match. Out came Cheeseburger to a good pop and “Cheeseburger” chants. He slowly staggered into the ring selling his injuries from his match with Bully Ray Wednesday night in Lowell, Massachusetts. He told Bully Ray that he wasn’t scared of him and was ready to go again.
3. Cheeseburger defeated Bully Ray by DQ. This didn’t go long and the finish came when Cheeseburger’s ill-advised superplex attempt was turned into a monstrous sit-out power bomb from the top rope by Bully Ray. Rather than pin him, Bully Ray ripped off Cheeseburger’s shirt to reveal his ribs taped up from midweek and he whipped him with a chain for the DQ. He teased putting Cheeseburger through the timekeeper’s table, but just dropped him and walked out. Cheeseburger was helped to the back.
4. IWGP Intercontinental Champion Tetsuya Naito defeated Beer City Bruiser. The place went nuts for Naito. Bruiser moves well for a man of his size and his crowd work is good, going for cheap heat by insulting Canada and attempting to start a “USA” chant. The crowd responded to that with a “We have dental” chant, mocking Bruiser’s, uh, need for some dental work. The crowd loved Naito, chanting for him throughout. After Bruiser worked him over for a while, Naito hit Destino for the win.
At this point (or sometime around here, I can’t remember exactly when), Bobby Cruise announced that due to injury, ROH Champion Dalton Castle would be out of the main event, but a suitable replacement would be found. The crowd, obviously, reacted to the announcement quite negatively.
5. “The Young Bucks” Matt and Nick Jackson defeated “Super Smash Bros.” Evil Uno and Stu Grayson. Just a bonkers pop for the Bucks. The place went crazy for them. This was an excellent match and these two teams work really well together. This was the SSB’s first appearance in ROH in nearly a decade and hopefully, it won’t take that long for another. The action was fast and furious here with both teams trading really fun offense and the Bucks hitting all of their signature stuff. A “Fight forever” chant broke out midway through the match and, really, that wouldn’t have been so bad. The finish came when the SSB hit their Fatality! (A Gory bomb/Diamond Dust combo move), but couldn’t get the pinfall, which allowed for the Jacksons to hit a Meltzer Driver on Grayson for the win. After the match, both teams embraced, but were jumped by the Briscoes. Mark and Jay went to work on the Bucks and left them laying. Jay and Mark cut a (kinda profane for current ROH standards, but not “Briscoe profane”) promo afterwards, letting everybody know that the Briscoes still ran the show around here.
6. Jenny Rose and Tenille Dashwood defeated Xandra Bale and Alexia Nicole. This was the first match back from a 15-minute intermission. The heel team of Bale and Nicole are local performers who regularly work for the Toronto-based Smash promotion. The match saw Rose play face in peril for a majority of the match until the former Emma ran wild. Rose picked up the win with a lariat on Nicole.
7. “SoCal Uncensored” Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky defeated “CHAOS” Rocky Romero, Sho and Yoh. Nice pop for Romero and Roppongi 3K. SoCal Uncensored are fun heels and shit-talked the ringside fans throughout the match. At one point, a male fan shouted something at Kazarian, who responded with “Shut up, young lady!” which got a big laugh from the crowd. Kaz and Daniels hit Sho with Celebrity Rehab that was quickly followed up by a superkick from Sky to get the win.
8. Silas Young defeated “Hangman” Adam Page to retain the ROH TV Championship. Big pop for Page. Before the match could get underway, Punishment Martinez jumped Page from behind and beat him down, culminating in a Stomp on top of a chair, as payback for the interference earlier on in the evening. As officials came out to help Page to the back, Young grabbed a mic and told referee Paul Turner that his job was to defend the TV Title and Turner’s job was to officiate a match and if Page couldn’t go tonight, he had to count him out. As Turner began to reluctantly count, Page pushed away the people trying to help him to the back and returned to the ring to a big pop. The story here was that Page just couldn’t overcome the beating from Martinez. Young slipped out of the Rite of Passage and hit Page with Misery to retain the title. With Page down and out after the match, Young walked over and shook his hand.
9. “The American Nightmare” Cody (w/Burnard the Business Bear) defeated Jushin “Thunder” Liger. Huge pops for both guys and dueling chants. Cody worked heel and got into it with the ringside fans, but the crowd still loved him. At one point, Cody caught Burnard clapping for Liger’s offense and berated him for it. Liger was leery of Burnard throughout and eventually hit him with a tope suicida to take him out of the equation for good. After Cody used Todd Sinclair for cover and a minor ref bump, he hit CrossRhodes on Liger for the win and helped Burnard to the back. Liger stayed in the ring after the match, receiving a standing ovation as he thanked the fans.
10. “Los Ingobernables de Japon” Hiromu Takahashi, EVIL, and SANADA (w/BUSHI and Daryl Takahashi Jr.) defeated Jay Lethal, Kenny King and Colt Cabana. There was a big pop for LIJ (who came out to EVIL’s music) with the crowd especially loving Takahashi. Okay, so about that announcement that Dalton Castle wouldn’t be appearing – King and Lethal introduced Cabana as his replacement, which drew a big response from the crowd, but this was advertised as an eight-man tag with Flip Gordon as the fourth member of the ROH team. There was no mention of Flip at all and it just became a six-man tag with BUSHI sitting the match out but running interference for his team throughout. For the duration of the match, the LIJ didn’t bother standing on the apron and just chilled at ringside.
SANADA started the match, but tagged in Hiromu with Cabana in for the ROH team. Cabana demanded that Takahashi tag in Daryl Jr. Reluctantly, Hiromu obliged and placed Daryl Jr. in the middle of the ring. Cabana attacked the emotional support cat and took off Daryl Jr.’s luchador mask as a horrified Hiromu covered Daryl’s face as the crowd chanted “You sick f—” at Cabana. Cabana and Takahashi did some comedy before Lethal tagged in and ran wild. In the latter stages of the match, Lethal hit every member of LIJ with multiple tope suicidas (he hit one on all four guys at least twice each) and King nailed BUSHI with a beautiful corkscrew plancha. The finish came when Cabana attempted to go up top, but BUSHI misted him, which allowed EVIL (the wrestler) to hit Evil (the STO) on Colt for the win. After the match, Naito came out to celebrate. EVIL grabbed the mic, did his “Everything is evil” catchphrase along with fans and thanked Toronto. Naito then did the LIJ roll call and his “Tranquilo” catchphrase to send the crowd home happy.
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