By way of general review, I enjoyed Ring of Honor’s PPV. NXT has much better production values. But if NXT has a major-league look, it also has a minor-league feel. We’re not in the big time yet. ROH looks like it was shot in a poorly-lit off-strip Vegas casino. Which, this time, it was. But there’s still a be-all, end-all feel.
Maybe don’t dress Samoa Joe like a homeless person next time.
Joe, however, was perceived on-site like A BIG STAR. So maybe don’t trot him out right before a main event that features four relative non-entities, and in front of a crowd already burned out by high spots. Joe hurt the main event’s heat.
I’m going to narrow my review down to the Young Bucks-ReDragon match, which I really enjoyed but for all the wrong reasons. These are two really good tag teams, although I like to ***k with the Young Bucks on Twitter because “that’s what Twitter is for.” (C. 2014, Matt Hardy.) You’re twinks! Smile! Lighten up!
To stay briefly in that vernacular, the “Suck It” sequence in this match was extremely homoerotic, whether intentionally or not. Way to diversify! I also like the use of heroin slang to describe ReDragon’s finishing move.
For what this match was, it was great. I’m just not sure what it was.
What’s supposed to be spectacular was merely transition. Everything is a finish, but nothing is a finish. They sell big, but too briefly. In the match’s initial minutes, a flurry of vicious elbows got traded. Nobody even really flinched. These four likely think they’re masters of ring psychology. In reality, they have almost none. HURRY! HURRY! HURRY!
“This is awesome!” “Holy ***t!” Wrestlers like these four love to hear those chants. They shouldn’t. Those chants reflect zero emotional investment in the characters involved, and REAL pro wrestling – which is basically how ROH bills itself – is about the characters, first and foremost. Those chants reduce the participants to spot monkeys. Nothing else.
