wrestling / TV Reports

Csonka’s ROH Final Battle PPV Review 12.07.14

December 7, 2014 | Posted by Larry Csonka
8.3
The 411 Rating
Community Grade
12345678910
Your Grade
Loading...
Csonka’s ROH Final Battle PPV Review 12.07.14  

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 Final Battle PPV Review 12.07.14

OFFICIAL RESULTS
~ Hanson defeated Mark Briscoe, Caprice Coleman and Jimmy Jacobs @ 10:45 via pin [**½]
~ Roderick Strong defeated Adam Page @ 12:10 via referee’s stoppage [**¾]
~ Michael Elgin defeated Tommaso Ciampa @ 13:20 via pin [**½]
~ The Young Bucks and ACH defeated Daniels, Kaz and Alexander @ 12:45 via pin [****]
~ Moose defeated RD Evans @ 7:38 via pin [DUD]
~ ROH TV Title Match: Jay Lethal © defeated Matt Sydal @ 15:00 via pin [***]
~ ROH Tag Team Title Match: reDRagon defeated Time Splitters @ 18:10 via submission [****]
~ ROH World Title Fight Without Honor: Jay Briscoe defeated Adam Cole @ 21:20 via pin [****]


Four Corner Survival: This was the show’s opener, and they gave some solid time to the match, which was nice. All too often multi-man matches get short changed, and feel way too hectic and lack flow. Overall I felt that this match avoided that, but in many ways simply felt like the typical ROH four-way match. It wasn’t bad, but was nothing you’ll remember tomorrow. The match was an obvious vehicle to get Hanson over, as he picked up the big PPV victory here. Hanson has been positioned in big TV matches recently (with Styles and Sydal) so the decision makes sense to give him the big win on the biggest stage that they have.

Roderick Strong vs. Adam Page: The angle between the two has been played out for a while now, with Page looking for respect from the Decade, and specifically Strong. Since his quest for respect has not always put them on the same page, the match was set. I really thought that this match would be designed for Page to really break out and likely take the victory here, but that did not appear to be the plan. They had a good match, but in some ways under whelming. Strong looked very dominant, putting Page in the Stronghold and tying him up leading to the referee’s stoppage. The referee stoppage isn’t a bad finish by any means, but this felt more about Strong looking good going forward instead of fully elevating Page. I feel that they missed the boat on that here following all of the build to the match. The Decade stuff just feels “there” to me right now.

Michael Elgin vs. Tommaso Ciampa: I have not been a fan of the booking of these guys for some time, but the thing is that I know that they can have a good match so I had strong expectations here. They worked the style you’d expect, where they beat the living hell out of each other, and while not for everyone, they tend to make it work. We then got the REF BUMP when Ciampa accidentally clotheslined the ref. This led to drama between Ciampa and Nigel, who has set up a zero tolerance on Ciampa attacking non-wrestlers. They had some back and forth, and then because Nigel is a poor authority figure, he simply left without doing anything. This led to Elgin scoring the pin in an anticlimactic fashion. I had hoped that the talent of the performers could overcome the booking, and they tried, but couldn’t quite do it. Unfortunately when all was said and done, I came away disappointed as they were doing some good things out there. Also, it continues to feel as if they are building to Ciampa vs. Nigel, which I don’t think is the plan nor should it be.

The Young Bucks and ACH vs. Daniels, Kaz and Alexander: The show wasn’t bad up to this point, but it was certainly missing something. That something was this six-man, it was exactly what the doctor ordered. What we got was a wild, balls to the wall match with everyone working hard and just delivering a wonderful display of athleticism. I like everyone involved, and Daniels and Kaz are such great veteran workers, the Bucks are at the top of their game and ACH and Alexander are always fun. I tremendously enjoyed this, and went from basically a “meh” mentality for the show to completely refocused on the event. The Bucks and ACH win following the Meltzer Driver by the Bucks and 450 by ACH. This was simply great.

Moose vs. RD Evans: And back off the cliff we go! Just as I got back into the show, this match managed to take me right back out of it. The match simply fell apart, the crowd did not seem to care at all (unless they were chanting you fucked up) and then Veda Scott low blowed Evans to turn on him, allowing Moose to pick up a weak ass win. Overall this had bad work, bad booking and at the end of the day I feel that this accomplished nothing other than to take me out of the show. This was one of the worst PPV matches of 2014.

TV Champion Jay Lethal vs. Matt Sydal: Jay Lethal retained the title in what was mostly a good 15-minute match, hurt by the booking of Sydal going into the event and the overbooking of the card as a whole. Jay Lethal has been great during his ROH run and I have said that repeatedly, and Sydal has been doing well since his return to the independent scene. But the fact that he was booked weakly as a challenger (not picking up a ton of wins) I felt hurt the crowd here. It felt as if they were cool reacting to moves and action, but were not emotionally invested and did not buy into a lot of Sydal’s near falls. Just when you thought they were into things and Sydal hit the SSP, Truth pulled out the ref (we had ref bullshit in Ciampa vs. Elgin and overbooking in Moose vs. Evans) so this came off as groan inducing to me, like an old TNA PPV. Sydal beat on Martini, which led to Lethal hitting the lethal injection to retain the title.

ROH Tag Team Champions reDRagon vs. Time Splitters: These guys have had some great outings for New Japan, so when this match was announced for this show, I was excited. The key was the booking here, the ROH crowd is a smart crowd and follows NJPW. The general feeling was that the champions would retain here because they are dropping the NJPW JR tag titles in January. When your audience knows things like this, you have to make sure that the story is worked well so that the live crowd can buy into the challengers. I felt that overall they had a very good match, but not at the level of their recent NJPW stuff. They work well together, the chemistry is there, but the crowd feels tired to me here. It felt as if the guys kept working hard and pulling out very cool and innovative stuff, but the crowd has seen a lot already, and now the bigger moves aren’t getting the same reaction. Overall a very good match, a definitive finish for the ROH Champs as they win via submission, in front of a livelier crowd it would have come off even better. I liked this just as much as the six-man tag, although they were completely different styles of matches.

FIGHT WITHOUT HONOR – ROH World Champion Jay Briscoe vs. Adam Cole (BABY!): In my opinion, I feel the ROH Title scene has been a mess for a while. I loved Cole winning the title, but felt his reign was cut off too soon when Elgin won. The Elgin reign sucked a bag of dicks, and then whatever bullshit happened and they put the title on Briscoe again. While in theory that made sense, it did nothing for me as a fan. As for the match, I think it ended up being everything it needed to be. The Briscoe vs. Cole issue goes back around two years, and they have done so much to each other, so the Fight Without Honor felt right. They brought out the tables, chairs, thumbtacks, big moves and all the little call backs to the feud to tell the story. They even did a tease when Cole got busted open and they had “the commission” tease that they would stop the match, which the crowd bought into. Now the match style may not be for everyone, I know some hate the unprotected chair shots and shit like that, and that is fine because it all comes down to personal preference. I felt as if they told a beautiful story of violence that hit the climax perfectly and had tremendous symbolism. After they threw everything at each other, Jay laid out the ROH Title in front of Cole, the thing that they have been locked in battle for all of this time, and then picked him up and hit the Jay Driller onto the belt to score the victory. From a storytelling perspective, I thought that was tremendous. Again, the violence may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but when not done all the time and saved for the right occasion (like here) I really have no issue with it. They did a match you don’t see much in wrestling these days (a real grudge feel, juice, chairs to the head) and I felt that they pulled it off. While I personally would have preferred a Cole victory, this was a damn good piece of business.

* End scene.

* Thanks for reading.

 photo fe36ffd0-0da4-4e3b-a2d3-b026b341dd87_zps41ef5d61.jpg
“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”

8.3
The final score: review Very Good
The 411
First things first, I felt as if there were too many shenanigans on the show early with the ref stuff. It felt way too cliché and like any other promotion. When you’re ROH, you need to try and be different and not rely on the typical bullshit that the other companies offer up. Also the Ciampa/Nigel stuff is completely tired and is feeling way too forced

That being said, outside of the one DUD match, I felt that this was a very good show. The top two matches delivered, as did the six-man. I enjoyed them all the same, but they were three completely different matches and I appreciated the variation in styles. The rest of the matches were solid to good, and overall this was an easy three hours to watch. If you haven’t checked out ROH in a while, this was a very good event and one to check out.

legend