Csonka Reviews ROH Survival of the Fittest 2014 (Night Two)

Introduction
As a reminder, this will not be another traditional recap, but instead it will be a mash up of the Rs, Instant Analysis and my usual Twitter ramblings I would do during the shows; completely uncensored and as the ideas flow unfiltered to the old keyboard. Remember, this is a review; and I am here to review the show. As always, I encourage discussion and even disagreement, just do so in a respectful manner. I will be doing the review for Raw and most PPVs and iPPVs going forward.

ROH Survival of the Fittest 2014 (Night Two)

~ Jay Lethal defeated Cedric Alexander @ 11:30 via pin [***]
~ RD Evans & Moose defeated The Decade @ 10:30 via pin [**]
~ Mike Bennett defeated Will Ferrara @ 9:30 via pin [**]
~ ACH defeated Matt Taven @ 16:00 via pin [**¼]
~ TaDarius Thomas defeated Romantic Touch @ 10:30 via pin [*]
~ The Briscoes defeated Daniels and Kazarian @ 22:00 via [***¾]
~ Adam Cole defeated Hanson, Ciampa, Sydal, Page and Strong @ 40:26 via [***]

* I reviewed Night One at this link. Night one showed a lot of promise so lets see if Night Two can live up to or exceed that.

Jay Lethal vs. Cedric Alexander: Lethal refused to put the TV Title on the line, and was still pissed from his loss to Hanson the previous night. They had a really nice opening match, they worked well together, the work was clean and they didn’t overstay their welcome. They got in, they delivered a good start to the show and they got out at the right time. I have no complaints, but would like to offer another note. The thing that they have been able to do with Lethal that they never tried to do with Taven was that they have managed to up the prestige of the TV Title. Lethal has been so good in his role, they have minimized the bullshit from Martini, and Lethal gets the clean wins enough that it all works. This was a nice way to open the show.

RD Evans & Moose vs. The Decade (BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs): This was a perfectly fine tag match. The goal was to keep the streak going, which they did, and to add tension with Page and Strong heading into Final Battle, which was accomplished as Strong came out to brawl with Page. The only negative, and I have felt this way for a while, is that overall the Decade seems to simply exist. I do not buy them as this evil force or anything of that sort, they exist and if they disappeared tomorrow (specifically Jacobs and Whitmer) I do not think I would miss them. I’m not saying that they do not have a place, but they could be used much better.

Mike Bennett vs. Will Ferrara: This was another match that was just fine, but in the grand scheme I felt it served no purpose. They had a match, it was fine, and you’re telling me that Mike Bennett needs help to defeat Will Ferrara? Sometimes heels just need to win, like mentioned with Jay Lethal. Post match, The Kingdom beats down Ferrara and ACH made the save, which led to the next match.

ACH vs. Matt Taven: Overall I liked this match a little more than the last two, but I felt that it under delivered a but and honestly went a little too long. The work was generally good, but there was a lot of shenanigans which I felt took away from the in ring action. The Kingdom’s interference ended up backfiring, and ACH got the win. They could have clipped a few minutes off of this easily, because it ended up feeling too long by the time we got to the finish. And then in a bit of Raw booking, the win doesn’t even really matter because the Kingdom makes up for their incompetence by attacking and beating down ACH post match. If you asked me why this match happened, the only real reason I have was to fill time.

TaDarius Thomas vs. Romantic Touch: TaDarius Thomas vs. Romantic Touch was the match coming out of intermission, and it wasn’t good. These two did not work well together, the crowd did not care and this came off as another match that was only here to fill space on the card. Moving on.

The Briscoes vs. Daniels and Kazarian: We finally got back on track quality wise with a really good tag match between The Briscoes and the Addiction. This was a case of giving two talented tag teams a good chunk of time and letting them do their thing. Between the two teams there is so much expedience, and the crowd loves all of the guys involved, so they stayed into the match the whole way. They simply worked a very good tag team match, with a hot run down the stretch and the Briscoes scoring the win. In many ways this was a Briscoe Brothers tag team match, so your enjoyment may vary here, but I felt that they did a damn good job here and never once overstayed their welcome. This was easily the best match on the show for me.

Adam Cole (BABY) Won Survival of The Fittest: The main event was the Survival of the Fittest finals featuring Tommaso Ciampa vs. Roderick Strong vs. Adam Page vs. Adam Cole vs. Hanson vs. Matt Sydal. I felt that this was an overall strong lineup and was looking forward to things. Unfortunately I did not end up liking this as much as I had hoped. First of all there was too much bullshit and or shenanigans thanks to Michael Elgin, the Decade and the Kingdom. I get how it works into the storylines and such, but I had hoped that we’d get a clean match without the bullshit to crown the Survival of the Fittest winner. I feel that the extra curricular activities did more to take away from the match than add to it on about every level, it simply became frustrating. This also went too long, because once we got down to the final minutes I felt as if I was watching this match forever and a day. The overall work was good, there was a lot to enjoy, but there was also a lot that took away from the overall presentation. Adam Cole as the winner I felt was the right call, and made the most sense as they built to Final Battle here. They seemingly banked a lot on this match, and I felt as if it did not carry the show as they had hoped.

* End scene.

* Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”

5.5

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

I felt that Survival of the Fittest night one was a good show that set the stage for night two to succeed, unfortunately I felt as if night two came up very short. Most of the matches were matches that you could see on any show any day of the week, and most felt as if they served no real purpose. The opener was good, and the Briscoes vs. Addiction was the match of the night. Unfortunately this show felt like the main event was positioned as the one match on a one match show, and while overall entertaining, felt that it failed to deliver as the culmination of a two-day event.

Recommendation to skip this show.