ROH TV taping results: The road to Final Battle
Image: Cary Silkin. Report submitted by reader Richard Kelly.
Ring of Honor was at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania last night and taped a few episodes of television as they set things up for Final Battle.
– The Kingdom (Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan) defeated Coast 2 Coast (Leon St. Giovanni & Shaheem Ali) and The Dawgs (Rhett Titus & Will Ferrara)
This was a good opener with a lot of action to start off. The Dawgs’ gimmick seems to be Titus saying he’s the Big Dog, with Ferrara thinking he’s the Big Dog. But with Ferrara being so small, most of their offense is double teams with Titus throwing Ferrara around. The Kingdom were much more over with the fans than the last time they were in Philly.
The big highlight of the match was St. Giovanni doing a big double springboard Phoenix Splash to the outside onto everyone. The Kingdom won when Marseglia had St. Giovanni up for an Attitude Adjustment, then O’Ryan picked up Marseglia and hit an AA on him with St. Giovanni still on his shoulders. That was a cool move.
– Cody Rhodes came out for a promo and said he promised an ROH World Championship defense that everyone wanted to see. Of course, everyone thought he meant Dalton Castle but he brought out a local jobber instead.
– ROH World Champion Cody defeated Brian Nova to retain his title
Cody made Nova kiss the ring, but Nova pulled the ring off of his finger with his mouth and shocked Cody with a couple of big roll-ups. Cody hit a Cross Rhodes but pulled Nova up at two. He then applied a reverse figure four to get the submission win. This only went about a minute.
Castle came out after the match and said he’s disappointed in Cody because all of his title defenses have been bad. Castle wanted to give Cody the opportunity to give these fans a title match with him. Cody said he didn’t think Castle could beat him, saying he’ll put him in touch with Jane Geddes and “Paul” and get him a developmental contract like all of Castle’s buddies that left ROH, then maybe Castle will get better and be good enough to come back.
Cody told Castle to think about it and started to walk away, but Castle chased him down, threw him back into the ring, and hit the Bang-a-Rang before saying he’s staying in ROH and taking Cody’s title. This was a good segment.
– ROH World Tag Team Champions Motor City Machine Guns defeated War Machine to retain their titles
Really good match. War Machine hit Fallout in the first 15 seconds and Alex Shelley broke it up, setting the tone for this one. War Machine dominated for a long time before MCMG finally cut off Ray Rowe and got the heat on him. Hanson then got the hot tag and ran wild.
War Machine went for Fallout again before The Addiction ran down with cans of Silly String and Daniels sprayed it all over Hanson and Rowe. Somehow, this didn’t cause a disqualification. Rowe threw Daniels out of the ring, but Chris Sabin rolled him up to retain the titles. After the match, War Machine cut a promo saying they’re coming after The Addiction.
– Jenny Rose defeated Nikki Addams, Jessie Brooks, and Sumie Sakai in a four corner survival Women of Honor match
Rose won with a spear and a roll-up on Addams.
– Punishment Martinez defeated Josh Woods
A series of matches were held at the tapings with the winners going on to a four corner survival match for the ROH Television Championship at Final Battle. Martinez was the first to advance after hitting a sit-out chokeslam for the win. Both men are definitely improving and had a good back-and-forth match.
– Jay Lethal entered for a promo, saying he’s had a rough few months but is ready to go after the ROH World title again. He was then interrupted by Marty Scurll. Scurll said that Lethal was on the list of guys he wanted to face when he came to ROH, but it was because Lethal was a bit of a villain himself. Now Lethal has changed into being compassionate and it’s gotten him nowhere.
Lethal said he used to act like a villain because he could, but Scurll acts like one because he has to — he can’t get it done otherwise. Scurll challenged Lethal to face him at Final Battle and Lethal promised to bring out that old side of him and show Scurll some new tricks.
– ROH World Television Champion Kenny King defeated Mark Briscoe by forfeit
Mark is coming off of dislocating his elbow on the Global Wars tour last week. He came out with a gigantic cast on his arm here. Everyone was wondering how he was going to wrestle when Jay Briscoe, who was at ringside with him, threw in the towel seconds into the match before they even locked up. The referee rang the bell and declared King the winner by forfeit.
Mark was irate at Jay, with Jay just going to the back. Jay had previously said that he wants his brother to stop worrying about other belts — he wants to be a tag team again.
King was in the ring perplexed by the whole situation when he was jumped by Martinez. A scrum broke out with Jonathan Gresham, Silas Young, Shane Taylor, and Cheeseburger all getting involved before King wiped them out with a big flip dive over the top to stand tall.
– Best Friends (Trent Barreta & Chuck Taylor) defeated The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian)
This was another very fun match. Motor City Machine Guns were at ringside to do commentary, with The Kingdom coming out onto the ramp with chairs to watch the match. There was some comedy early, but it then settled down into a basic tag bout.
Taylor got the hot tag and was going for the win when Daniels went to get a chair. Before he could use it, War Machine made their way down and stopped him. Daniels went back into the ring and Taylor hit the Awful Waffle for the win.
Best Friends and MCMG had a staredown after the match, as did The Addiction and War Machine.
– Dalton Castle defeated Hangman Page
Cody was on commentary for this. They had a very good, hard-hitting match. Page has become one of the most over guys in the company over the last several months. Castle took him out with a tope before the match even started, with Castle showing much more fire here than any of his previous matches.
Castle later made a big comeback with a lot of different suplexes. He hit the Bang-a-Rang, but Cody pulled the referee out of the ring. They went to double team Castle, but Page hit Cody on accident. Castle hit another Bang-a-Rang and locked on a submission that looked like an Anaconda Vice for the win.
Cody and Page then beat down Castle. Cody punched him in the head with his championship ring.
– Bully Ray came out dressed in street clothes. He was showered with chants of “ECW” and “Bubba Dudley.” Bully said that he took time to appreciate all of the fans outside the building today and thanked everyone there because this was the building that changed wrestling. He said that it’s time for things to end, and he’s happy and wants the fans to be happy too.
Bully noted that he loved ECW, but he also loves ROH. While he’s under contract for a little longer, he’s going to do everything he can to help the guys in the back and help the promotion grow. Joe Koff then got in the ring and thanked Bully for his time in ROH, saying he will always have a home there.
Suddenly, Jay Briscoe ran out and got in Bully’s face, asking him if this is how he’s really going to go out. He smacked Bully’s hat off his head and called him a bitch. Bully took off his jacket and wanted to fight, but Koff and Bobby Cruise separated them. While they were separated, Jay hit Bully with a cheap shot in the back of the head and he went down motionless.
Velvet Sky ran out to tend to Bully, while Tommy Dreamer ran down to make the save and got in Jay’s face. Before they could fight, Mark Briscoe came down and separated them — then Mark turned around and kicked Dreamer low. The Briscoes got a steel chair and hit Dreamer in the back, then picked Bully up and hit him with a 3D. Bully sold that by not moving at all and remained motionless for about five minutes.
Officials ran down as the crowd booed The Briscoes. They were trash talking and got in Velvet Sky’s face as she was upset. Finally, The Briscoes left up the ramp and left the doctors, trainers, and ring crew to tend to Bully. They finally got Bully up, with Bully acting like he was really hurt. They slowly took him to the back as the crowd remained in their seats watching the whole way.
– Karen Q defeated Deonna Purrazzo in a Women of Honor match
Good back-and-forth match. Purrazzo is one of the stars of Women of Honor and for good reason. Towards the end, there was a ref bump and Karen Q went outside of the ring, grabbed a chair, and whacked Purrazzo with it to steal the victory.
– Matt Taven defeated Jay White
Another good match. The best spot was when White had Taven on the outside and gave him a brainbuster on the apron, then O’Ryan and Marseglia rolled Taven’s body back into the ring as he said, “Why did you do that? I’m dying!”
The numbers game eventually caught up to White. O’Ryan knocked his foot off the rope and crotched him on the top turnbuckle, letting Taven hit a rope-assisted headlock driver for the win. The Kingdom beat down White until Search and Destroy made the save.
– Shane Taylor defeated Cheeseburger
This appeared to be another TV title contender’s match. It only went about two minutes. Cheeseburger was very over. Taylor didn’t want to fight him because of the massive size difference, but Taylor grabbed him, gave him a chokeslam, and then hit a big punch for the win after Cheeseburger briefly ran wild.
The Dawgs came out after and offered Taylor a cup full of pennies to beat up Cheeseburger, but Taylor dumped the pennies on Ferrara’s head and they left.
– Silas Young defeated Jonathan Gresham
Young and Gresham faced off in the final TV title contender’s match. It was another fun one, with them doing a lot of comedy for most of it. Gresham kept getting distracted by Beer City Bruiser at ringside. He went for an octopus hold, but Bruiser distracted the referee with a beer keg, then ran in the ring and broke the hold up. Young followed that by hitting Misery for the win.
– War Machine came out for a match until they were jumped by The Addiction in the aisle. The teams brawled at ringside. Rowe had Daniels set up in the corner of the guardrails and Hanson went to lawn dart Kazarian, but Daniels moved at the last second and Kazarian flew into the crowd and hit a female fan (who I’m assuming was a plant).
The fan went flying and they quickly tended to her and took her to the back. All four seemed shocked at what happened and left.
– The Young Bucks, Hangman Page & Marty Scurll defeated Flip Gordon, Scorpio Sky, Leon St. Giovanni & Shaheem Ali
This was built up as Gordon being tired of the Bullet Club, so he put together a team of up-and-coming ROH wrestlers to battle them. Cody came to the ring and did a very long introduction as he announced each member of their team. We got a “F**k Roman Reigns” chant from the crowd at this point.
There were a lot of crazy spots in the match. You can tell when Bullet Club sometimes plays the hits — and they did a lot of their classic spots here — but they worked very hard. This was over four hours into the show and the crowd was still going nuts. The match felt like a real effort to get Gordon over as a big star.
After a ton of high spots and superkicks at the end, Page had Sky and Gordon on his front and back in position for a Last Rites and a tombstone. Matt and Nick Jackson then came off the corner posts with a Meltzer Driver and an Indytaker for the finish. This was a long main event after a long night of action, but the crowd was totally into it from start to finish.