RoH Border Wars

I watched Ring of Honors latest IPPV this weekend, and I worked Saturday and only caught the main event live, which was probably for the best as I missed the technical difficulties that apparently beset the show, but that does mean I get Best in the World 2012 free so that's pretty cool. So I thought I'd give some thoughts on the card and how everything played out.

Rhino vs. Eddie Edwards
A good match to start the show off. Both of these guys were crisp and hit some nice moves. The shenanigans in the ending sucked, and the presence of so many people willing to cheat in RoH makes me sad. It really takes away from what made RoH special. Still these two men did a good job to start the show.

All Night Express & TJ Perkins vs. Young Bucks & Mike Mondo
The match on the card that fulfills the spotfest need, and it does it in a good way. All six of these guys deliver in the ring and it's a fun match. All tag matches kind of bother me when they break down and everybody hits finishers and tries for pins when they're not the legal man, but it was a good match.

Jay Lethal vs. Tommaso Ciampa
This match began with some brawling on the outside of the ring which I think the match would have been better off without, but once it got into the ring it was a good match. The end with Lethal hitting ten backbreakers in the Lethal Combination before finishing it off was awesome. I'm not quite sure why they ended Ciampa's undefeated streak here, with it not really going anywhere, but I'm pretty sure it was Lethal's return that kind of ruined plans for that streak. Maybe they'll make this go somewhere good for Ciampa, but it probably means leaving the Embassy, which is the cheating heel faction I want to stay in RoH. Although they should lose some of the hanger-ons and get some wrestlers in the faction. A good match between these two.

Mike Bennett vs. Lance Storm
Storm looked awesome in this match and I was a fan of this match although Bennett is pretty vanilla heel, but this was one of the better matches I've seen him in. Storm was impressive with a leap to the top rope belying his age, and he also borrowed from his former tag partner, Jericho, and hit a nice codebreaker before getting the win. I haven't seen a lot of Bennett matches, but what I have seen hasn't impressed me.

Michael Elgin vs. Adam Cole
I've yet to see Elgin vs. Richards, and if everybody telling me how awesome the match is didn't convince me this match did. Cole looked good in this match as well, but Elgin was phenomenal and did some awesome stuff. This was my favorite match on the card. The best spot perhaps ever. Was Cole standing on the apron and Elgin stood on the second rope, lifted him up into a superplex falcon arrow. So good. I definitely need to make it a priority to find more Elgin matches.

Roderick Strong vs. Fit Finlay
This was a solid match, but I don't think there is a real reason to bring Finlay in to RoH. He's a perfectly fine wrestler, but nothing more than that. It also seemed to limit the amount of ridiculous backbreakers Strong got to do which made me sad although he did deliver some brutal sounding chops.

WGTT vs. The Briscoes
A solid brawl between these two teams, but RoH's production staff is not good at knowing where to be at the right time. Both table spots in the match were good, but I don't think a brawl like this really played into the strengths of both teams. The Briscoes do it, but WGTT are a little more tame in their weapon filled brawling, and the ending was not to my liking. I can see how it works, but again it's more bullshit that RoH shouldn't have. I'm guessing this is going to build to a Ladder War and I do love the idea of Shelton Benjamin and ladders.

Kevin Steen vs. Davey Richards
I really liked this match and everything was built up to well, although they did a few too many trading forearms spots for my liking in the middle and near the end of the match. There were some excellent false finishes and Richards hitting the DR Driver was the best. Steen delivered brutal looking powerbombs onto the ring apron in this match. I like the exposed turnbuckle coming into play since it gives Cornette a reason to say Steen didn't win fairly, without being truly illegal.

Overall it was a good show. Not great, but good and I don't regret ordering it at all, mostly because the problems didn't effect me.