ROH Global Wars Espectacular results: Matt Taven vs. Volador Jr.
ROH was live from Villa Park, Illinois on Saturday for the second of their Global Wars Espectacular shows with CMLL. Ian Riccaboni and Caprice Coleman were the commentary team for the night.
Austin Gunn defeated Dante Caballero in a Top Prospect tournament semifinal match
The winner of this match is to face Dak Draper in the Top Prospect finals. Riccaboni noted that Caballero is a former MCW Heavyweight Champion. Austin Gunn is Billy’s son. He wore pretty much the same gear and had a man-bun. He played arrogant kid heel in this match. Caballero took a swig from a flask before the match.
Once these two got going it was pretty good. Brian Johnson, an ROH Top Prospect, came out and got on commentary for about 30 seconds for a brief, boisterous promo. He’s a graduate of the new ROH Dojo. His promo came out of nowhere and was sort of rambly, and he brought up “pesos” for some reason, or implied his strong distaste for them.
Towards the end of this, Caballero did the whiskey mist spot that Yoshinobu Kanemaru does, but he missed and got the referee. Gunn hit what I think was supposed to be a famouser next and that was that.
Gunn will face Draper in the Top Prospect tournament finals. This was leaps and bounds ahead of the Top Prospect match from the show in Michigan on Friday night.
Silas Young & Josh Woods defeated Okumura & PJ Black
The Bouncers (Beer City Bruiser & Brawler Milonas) came out and did guest commentary for this. The gimmick with Young and Woods is that Young is mentoring him and trying to make him tougher and meaner, but Woods just can’t help but be a nice guy. He’d high-five fans and Young would scold him. He tried to shake the other team’s hands before the match but again Young had stern words for his new associate.
Woods and Okumura were in together first and had natural chemistry together. Young later told Woods to get out of the ring so he could show him how it’s done against Black. Woods made his way back in later and did some cool suplexes. The crowd had the energy of a public library. A lot of sections in the back were empty.
Okumura used an exploder suplex on Woods at one point, and it looked fine, but the crowd had zero reaction until they realized they should probably be clapping there. Woods used an armbar with a headscissors neck-crank to tap Okumura to win the match.
The Bouncers came to the ring afterwards and celebrated. Young was hesitant but eventually took a beer and gave Woods and The Bouncers a cheers gesture before heading to the back.
Sumie Sakai & Jenny Rose defeated The Allure (Angelina Love & Mandy Leon) by DQ
This was all a big setup for Maria Manic. Rose and Sakai ran through the crowd and jumped The Allure before the bell. They had a few minutes of tornado tag-style action before the referee could get one in and one out of the ring.
The match finished when Love sprayed perfume in Rose’s face, which saved Leon from tapping to Rose but also got them disqualified. They didn’t seem to care.
Sakai went after them after the match but got laid out. For some reason they brought out a table and set it up in the ring, but the lights went out. Maria Manic appeared in the ring and The Allure ran away. Manic then threw the ref out of the ring and chokeslammed one of the ring crew guys through the table. The crowd sounded like they liked this a bit.
ROH Television Champion Shane Taylor and Joe Hendry went to a 15-minute time limit draw in a Proving Ground match (Hendry receives a future TV title shot)
Despite the flat finish, this was a great match. There was a hilarious cut to Riccaboni and Coleman waving their arms back and forth to Hendry’s sickeningly catchy theme song. They wrestled for grips at the beginning of the match, up until Taylor paused to tell Hendry that he didn’t come here for “this bullsh*t chain” but was here to throw hands.
They eventually started lighting each other up with chops, which got the crowd more interested. Taylor is so agile, never moving like we expect him to.
They brawled on the outside next. Taylor laid some heavy shots in before they had another chop battle up against the barricade. They went pretty hard here. Taylor kept breaking the count so they could keep fighting outside the ring. Hendry’s chest looked like raw chicken by the end of this. Taylor talked a lot of trash and you could hear everything because of how quiet the crowd was. Thankfully, Taylor knows how to talk.
Hendry started flailing uppercuts at Taylor and later landed a big falling lariat on him. The crowd finally came around at this point and was into it. There were a couple close near falls from here on out. Taylor landed a big swinging flatliner that knocked both wrestlers out for a few moments.
A huge moment came when Taylor went for a running crossbody and Hendry caught him in midair and did a huge fallaway slam. The crowd was louder than it had been all night. They basically brawled until the bell rang, but ROH didn’t announce any time-checks, so I’m not sure if the crowd knew what happened.
Hendry was throwing knees at Taylor in the corner when the time limit expired. The crowd turned when ring announcer Bobby Cruise explained what had happened, that the time limit was up and that since it was a Proving Ground match, Hendry would now receive a shot at the Television title in the future.
The Briscoes (Jay & Mark Briscoe) defeated The Bouncers (Beer City Bruiser & Brawler Milonas) and Rey Bucanero & Hechicero in a three-way tag match
This was a crazy brawl starring the Briscoes and Hechicero. The crowd loved those three tonight. Team CMLL and The Briscoes teamed up on The Bouncers at first. This turned into a crazy brawl quickly. Hechicero kept getting chants from the crowd. He looked excellent, but Bucanero looked like he was wrestling in slow motion. He almost ate it completely on a tope con giro
Bruiser did the “I didn’t bite, I ain’t got no teeth!” spot that I think one person caught.
After The Briscoes won, they shook hands with Bucanero and Hechicero.
Rush defeated Barbaro Cavernario
Really good but short match. This felt like the real start of the show. The audience finally sprung awake, and once Rush and Cavernario got into it they exploded. Rush was on fire.
The crowd sounded like they were unfamiliar with Cavernario, but he never gave up on them and kept trying to get them to rally behind him. They did once he started doing dives. He did that cool tope he sometimes does through the top and middle turnbuckles, from one side of the ring to the other.
Rush smashed Cavernario in the face with a flying forearm and Cavernario shot a gob of spit up into the air, to the amusement of the crowd. Rush won after a stiff Bull’s Horns dropkick in the corner.
Jeff Cobb, Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham defeated Caristico, Stuka Jr. & Triton
This was a great car crash match. All cool flying moves or innovative power moves. Triton wore long pants tonight, compared to the borderline thong he wore the night before, which Caprice Coleman even felt compelled to comment on here. Caristico had a ton of Kinesio tape on his back.
Everyone in the match was in and out quickly — lots of action and everyone looked great, or “smooth as peanut butter” as Coleman put it.
Cobb had Stuka Jr. in a vertical suplex hold for what had to be more than 30 seconds. Stuka later came back with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker on the massive Cobb. People lost it when Cobb did a simultaneous Samoan drop-fall-away slam to Caristico and Triton.
Team CMLL came back quickly and did a triple tope suicida, which triggered a “lucha” chant. Triton did a sit-out fireman’s carry driver that wowed everyone who saw it — “holy hell,” indeed, Ian Riccaboni.
Lethal and Gresham hit a modified Cornette Cutter for the win, “modified” because Triton bumped on his back instead of his face. It looked fine though.
Colt Cabana defeated Dalton Castle, Kenny King, and Marty Scurll in a four corner survival match
King came out wearing a bandage over his head and eye. When King won his match on Friday night, he rolled out of the ring and face-first into the camera on the floor. They tried making an angle out of this and King accused the cameraman of conspiring with the Great Muta in a secret effort to blind him. He also called out PCO during this promo on the entrance stage.
This was a lot of improv and comedy wrestling when it got started. They found their rhythm midway through the match. King did a bunch of spots but missed because he was trying to sell the idea that he couldn’t see. He started doing a bunch of moves and finally ripped the bandages off, but Cabana poked him in the eyes, then King accidentally schoolboyed the ref.
The crowd erupted again before Scurll was about to do the chicken wing, but Castle shot in with a high knee strike. Castle then planted King with a big German suplex, but Cabana got the win after he timed a moonsault perfectly to land on Castle as he fell with the German.
ROH World Champion Matt Taven defeated Volador Jr. to retain his title
Taven and Volador squared off here after losing their hair together at CMLL’s 85th Aniversario last summer, with Taven turning against Volador.
Taven shoved Volador and said this was his house and it wasn’t Arena Mexico. There sounded to be a number of female fans in attendance that loved Volador. It looked like Volador busted his nose open — he had a little bit of blood above his lip. Taven blasted Volador with a hard dropkick through the ropes to the floor, then a wide tope over the top rope. Taven shines at this faster tempo, plus Volador’s size allows the slightly bigger Taven to lay in more effective-looking offense.
Volador rallied back later and did another huge tope con giro over the top. Volador somehow stays completely still in midair as he floats over on those topes, it often looks unreal. They started exchanging bigger moves back and forth and Volador was able to get the crowd loud behind him when he hit the Volador Special frankensteiner from the top, then a running Mexican Destroyer for two. His nose was still bloody and the camera closed in on it.
Volador went for a moonsault, but Taven put his feet up. When Volador went for another Volador Special, Taven knocked him from the turnbuckle so that he laid draped over the top rope. Taven grabbed him in a headlock and then spiked him with a draping Climax to put him away.
This was a really good match with a clear heel and babyface story that was easy to follow. The crowd was pretty into it throughout and especially at the end.
Villain Enterprises (PCO, Brody King & Flip Gordon) defeated LifeBlood (Bandido, Mark Haskins & Tracy Williams) in a Chicago street fight
Before the broadcast in a dark match, King & PCO dropped the NWA Tag Team titles to Royce Isaacs & Thomas Latimer.
Gordon attacked Williams with a chair before the match, so then Williams grabbed the mic and suggested they have a Chicago street fight, to the complete satisfaction of the crowd.
Every wrestler started throwing weapons into the ring, mostly chairs. They had a six-man chair duel before everything spilled to the floor. Gordon grabbed a black kendo stick from under the ring, then him and Williams, who had his own kendo stick (not custom like Gordon’s), had another duel.
The rest of this was a long thread of weapon match spots, and if that’s your thing it was pretty good. The crowd liked this but still the low attendance killed any heat these guys would try to conjure up.
PCO did a big cannonball onto a pile of folding chairs. King put Williams through a table in the corner and the crowd started chanting “this is awesome.” PCO later returned and buried Williams under a pile of chairs before attempting a moonsault that Haskins broke up. King ended up planting Haskins onto the pile of chairs with a back suplex.
Later, Bandido tried doing a sunset flip powerbomb from the apron through a table on the floor, but the table was way too close to the apron and Bandido actually had to go through it to break the fall. The crowd didn’t seem to know who got the worst of the move.
The match ended after Flip Gordon landed a Flip 5 on a few unfolded chairs in the center of the ring.
Final thoughts —
This was a much easier watch than night one of the tour. The crowd was quiet until the matches with more CMLL-heavy talent showed up.
Taven and Volador had a hell of a match, and the Team ROH vs. Team CMLL six-man tag was fun to watch. Taylor and Hendry had an above average match despite a weak crowd and flat finish. Rush vs. Cavernario was great but unfortunately too short, and Cavernario was able to get over a little bit by the end.
The Chicago street fight got over live, it always does, but after a while the impact of the violence comes off as less impressive on the screen. It didn’t have much rhyme or reason, but it sounded like the match that was most popular with the crowd. It was a good booking decision to put it on last, if anything.
The final Global Wars Espectacular show will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Sunday.