Csonka’s ROH 16th Anniversary PPV Review

Csonka’s ROH 16th Anniversary PPV Review

OFFICIAL RESULTS
– Pre-Show Match: Sumie Sakai defeated Hana Kimura @ 8:11 via pin [**½]
– Pre-Show Match: Tenille Dashwood defeated Brandi Rhodes @ 7:35 via pin [*½]
– Hiromu Takahashi defeated Flip Gordon @ 12:20 via pin [***]
– Marty Scurll defeated Punishment Martinez @ 10:45 via pin [***¼]
– ROH TV Title Match: Champion Kenny King defeated Silas Young @ 14:41 via pin [**¾]
– ROH Six-Man Title Street Fight: SoCal Uncensored defeated Champions The Hung Bucks @ 19:03 via submission [****]
– Cody defeated Matt Taven @ 14:12 via pin [***]
– ROH Tag Title Match: The Briscoes defeated Champions The Motor City Machine Guns @ 13:55 via pin [***]
– ROH Title Match: Champion Dalton Castle defeated Jay Lethal @ 26:06 via pin [****½]

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Women of Honor Tournament Match: Sumie Sakai vs. Hana Kimura: Deonna is out on commentary. Kagetsu is out with Kimura, and they do their pre-match dance. Kimura refuses the handshake. They stall a bit to begin, and Kimura attacks. Sakai battles back with a head scissors and roll up for 2. Kagetsu pulls Sakai to the floor and chokes her out as Kimura takes the ref. They then double-team Sakai right in front of the ref. Kimura hits a slam, covering for 2. The Romero special follows, and then Kimura works a half crab. Sakai makes the ropes. Sakai counters the suplex into a DDT, and trips up Kimura and hits a basement dropkick. The fisherman’s neck breaker follows for 2. Kimura fights back, hitting a dropkick and running boot for 2. They trade strikes, and Sakai hits a bridging Saito suplex for 2. Kagetsu cuts off Sakai, allowing Kimura to hit a superplex and follows with a delayed brainbuster for 2. Kimura pulls Sakai up Kagetsu gets involved again, but Kimura accidentally kicks her, Sakai sends them to the floor and follows with the high cross to the floor. Back in and Sakai up top, hits the missile dropkick. Kimura counters back, hits the corner boot and Sakai is down, and Kimura covers for 2. Sakai then gets a head scissors, rolls through and gets 2.The rolling neck breaker connects and Sakai wins. Sumie Sakai defeated Hana Kimura @ 8:11 via pin [**½] This was a fun and solid match overall, which would have been better without all of the interference from Kagetsu; that really took away from the match for me.

– Post match, Kimura & Kagetsu beat down Sakai.

Women of Honor Tournament Match: Tenille Dashwood vs. Brandi Rhodes: Mandy Leon is out on commentary. Dashwood blocks a kick and gets a roll up for 2. The cradle follows for another 2. Brandi hits a shoulder block, but Dashwood cuts her off and grounds the action. Dashwood hits a shoulder tackle, and Dashwood then makes Brandi run the ropes like a fool. Brandi slaps her, and Dashwood tackles her and beats her down, and then trips her to the buckles, but Brandi rolls to the floor. Dashwood chases her; Brandi lays in sloppy strikes and then grounds Dashwood, working the arm. Dashwood battles out but Brandi hits a sling blade for 2. Brandi awkwardly slams Dashwood to the buckles, and misses a corner splash. Dashwood follows with a clothesline. They trade strikes, Dashwood follows with clotheslines and takes Brandi to the corner. She works her over, and follows with the tarantula. Dashwood hits the corner splash for 2. Brandi fakes an injury again, gets in a cheap shit and Brandi hits a shitty cross Rhodes for 2. Brandi to the 2nd rope and misses the dropkick. Dashwood hits the spotlight kick for the win. Tenille Dashwood defeated Brandi Rhodes @ 7:35 via pin [*½] This was not good, as Brandi had major issues keeping up with Dashwood here. Her transitions are still sloppy and her execution is poor, she was way out of her league here and didn’t belong in the spot.

– Bully Ray give the big pep talk to kick off the show.

Flip Gordon vs. Hiromu Takahashi: So since the ROH site was down during this, I had to jump back and catch it late. They had a good back and forth match, but it was far from the usual high-level Takahashi singles matches. There was nothing wrong with the match at all, it was fun, the crowd liked it, Flip got in his flips and it had a good pace for an opening match. In the end, Takahashi countered the450, hit the Blu-ray and then scored with the time bomb for the win. It was a good way to kick off the show. Hiromu Takahashi defeated Flip Gordon @ 12:20 via pin [***]

Marty Scurll vs. Punishment Martinez: Marty attacks right away, but Martinez quickly fights back, cutting him off and hitting a step to dive to the floor. Back in and Marty attacks the leg of Martinez, but Martinez hits a big lariat, psycho driver and curb stomp for 2. Marty avoids the chokeslam, but Martinez hits knee strikes and the springboard senton for 2. Martinez takes control, just working over Marty with ease. Marty got busted open hard way above the eye, he keeps fighting back, and hits the tornado DDT. Martinez looks for a powerbomb, Marty escapes and hits a lariat but Martinez doesn’t go down. Marty fires up and hits the brainbuster for 2. Marty now looks for the chicken wing, but Martinez cuts that off and slams Marty to the mat. Marty quickly takes out the knee again, breaking down Martinez and grounding him. Martinez kicks him to the floor, Marty gets powder from under the ring, but the ref sees it. Security arrives as Martinez hits the over the post tope onto the pile. Martinez now kicks the shit out of security, and curb stomps Marty on the apron. Martinez now looks under the ring, and brings out a table. He then work over Marty with strikes, and lays him on the table. Martinez looks for the dive, Marty moves and Martinez crashes through the table. Marty rolls him back in and hits a piledriver, covering for a good near fall. Marty looks to break the fingers, Martinez counters, but Marty hits superkicks and stomps the shit out of Martinez. Martinez fires up and hits the ripcord kick and misses the spin kick, low blow by Marty after teasing the powder spot and he cradles Martinez for the win. Marty Scurll defeated Punishment Martinez @ 10:45 via pin [***¼] This was a good sprint style match, with some fun big spots, Marty being more serious and working with great aggression, and using his villain ways to pick up the win as expected.

ROH TV Title Match: Champion Kenny King vs. Silas Young: King’s daughter is at ringside. They lock up and work some basic back and forth, and Young hits a dropkick. Young takes time to celebrate, and then locks back up with King, talking trash and hits a shoulder tackle. King trips up Young, and works a last chancery, but Young rolls to the floor. King follows, and back in lays in jabs and follows with a hip toss and slam. The dropkick follows for 2. Young slows the pace, laying in strikes and grounding King. He dumps King to the floor and follows him out. Young rolls him back in and covers for 2. King to the apron and Young cuts him off as he looks to springboard in; King lands on his head and Young covers for 2. Young grounds the action, King fires back but Young tosses him into a cameraman on the floor. Back in and Young maintains control, laying in clubbing strikes and talks trash. King fights back and hits the suplex, taking both of them to the floor. They tease a double countout, but they make it back in. They trade strikes from their knees, and then on thier feet. King hits the spin kick and Young rolls to the floor. King hits the slingshot tornillo and wipes out Young. He looks to take a selfie, Young attacks, but King hits an overhead belly to belly and then takes the selfie. Back in and King hits the high cross for 2. The spinebuster follows for 2. Young sends King to the apron, hits a lariat and follows with a knee strike and draping neck breaker for 2. Young follows with the kick, they trade counters and Young hits the Finlay roll and Arabian moonsault for 2. They trade strikes and chops center ring, Young looks for misery, we get a ref bump and Young hits misery but the ref counts late for 2. Young argues with the ref and King rolls him up for 2. Young gets a sloppy roll up in the ropes and argues with the ref again. King hits the royal flush for the win. Champion Kenny King defeated Silas Young @ 14:41 via pin [**¾] They were working their way to a good match, until the overbooked finish really made it fall apart. King using the last chancery lately foreshadowed the Aries return a bit, which made for a cool post match moment. Sucks for Young though.

– Austin Aries and his many championships arrive. Aries congratulates King on his win, and talks about collecting belts. He wants the ROH TV Title,

ROH Six Man Title Street Fight: Champions The Hung Bucks (The Young Bucks and Hangman Page) vs. SoCal Uncensored (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian, and Scorpio Sky): The champions attack at the bell with dives, leading to a brawl on the floor. In the ring, the champions maintain control and run wild. Page powerbombs Sky on the entrance, and Nick hits Daniels with a dive. Sky eventually returns, attacking Page with a kendo stick. The Bucks continue to control, beating down Daniels. Page follows with the shooting star press off the apron onto Daniels. The Bucks bring out a table and Kaz is busted open. They lay him on the table, Matt up top and Daniels shoves him off and through the table as Kaz moved. The challengers isolate Nick back in the ring, ruing wild with triple teams. Kaz hits a slingshot RANA to the floor onto Page. Mick tries to fight back, but gets a kendo stick to the balls. Kaz & Sky hold Nick so that Daniels can work him over. Nick slowly fights back, but gets a trashcan thrown into his face and Sky hits a RANA to the floor. Sky & Kaz work dragon sleepers on the Bucks, but page makes the save with trashcan lid shots. He and Kaz trade shots renewing their rivalry. Page has the belt with tacks and nails on it and whips Kaz with it, but Daniels makes the save. Nick back in, runs wild until Sky throws a chair into his face. Matt back in to make the save, he clears out Sky, but Daniels slams him onto a chair with a back breaker, and now the challengers use barricades to make a bridge on the floor. Nick saves Matt and the Bucks lock on sharpshooters. Kaz makes the save with kendo stick shots, it breaks down a Daniels hits the BME on Page. Page battles back, fighting off angel’s wings and sends Daniels onto the barricade bridge. Kaz set on a table on the floor, and Nick gets out a ladder. Nick climbs and Sky cuts him off, and then hits an apron cutter. Matt cuts off Sky with an apron DDT. He superkicks Kaz, and now Matt climbs the ladder. Matt flies and hits the elbow drop through the table onto Kaz! Back in and Nick lays a trashcan on Sky and hits the 450 onto the can and Sky for 2 as Shane Taylor arrives and pulls out the ref. He apron bombs Nick, and has been paid off again. Matt hits superkicks, but Taylor cuts him off until Page makes the save. Page and Nick hit the rite of passage indie taker on Taylor. The challengers zip tie Page to the post, the Bucks fight on their own, hitting superkicks and look for the Meltzer driver, but Daniels cuts it off and Sky attacks Matt with a kendo stick to the back. The cutter and dragon sleeper follow, he then uses a kendo stick as Kaz also applies the crab; Matt taps. Daniels becomes a grand slam champion with the win. SoCal Uncensored defeated Champions The Hung Bucks @ 19:03 via submission [****] This was a wild, fun, chaotic and great match that played to the stipulation extremely well; pardon the pun. The Bucks and Page ran wild, hit all kinds of big moves and took big bumps, really giving it their all, while SoCal Uncensored used every dirty trick they could, including paying off Shane Taylor again so that they could win the titles. The story is that Joe Koff will not be re-signing Daniels & Kaz at the end of the year, so they were dead set on winning titles to force ROH to keep them around. They were desperate and violent and showed their desperation well here. This was total insanity and given the stipulation, it was exactly what it needed to be.

– The Kingdom’s Vinny & O’Ryan arrive and attack the former champions. Bully Ray runs them off.

Cody vs. Matt Taven: Brandi & Bury the Bear are out with Cody. They lockup and work around the ropes, and Cody breaks clean. Taven powders to the floor. Taven looks to go after Bury, but Cody cuts him off with a suicide dive. They brawl at ringside, and back in and Cody hits the flatliner for 2. Cody hits a hip toss and locks on the American death lock, but Taven makes the ropes. Taven hits a cartwheel and mocks the old Stardust pose. He grounds the action, laying the boots to Cody and choking him out, and calling Cody Stardust. Cody fires up and hits a DDT for 2.They trade chops in the ropes, Taven drops to the floor and wants a kiss from Brandi. Cody follows, but that allows Taven to hit a tope. Taven now posts Cody, and back in, and Taven looks to ground things, but Cody bites his hand to escape. Taven hits something resembling a backstabber, and then grounds Cody again. Cody escapes, hits the drop down uppercut, but Taven counters the disaster kick and locks on the crab. He then follows with the running knee strike. They trade strikes, Cody fires up and hits the snap slam for 2. The Alabama slam follows and Cody covers for 2. Cody now hits the missile dropkick and Bury slides Cody a chair, but the ref takes it, allowing Taven to hit Cody with his cane and cross Rhodes for 2. Cody counters the climax, but Taven counters the disaster kick with a springboard kickoff his own. Taven up top and misses the frog splash, and Cody hits the disaster kick for 2 (great sell by Taven). Taven fights back and hits the climax for a near fall. Taven sets Cody up top, Cody fights him off, but then jumps into the ref for the ref bump. Cody & Taven work into a double down. Vinny & TK arrive and the Kingdom works over Cody, Taven hits a low blow, but Cody had a cup on. Bully tosses Vinny & TK, Cody hits cross Rhodes for the win. Cody defeated Matt Taven @ 14:12 via pin [***] They had a good match, with both trying to constantly trying to one up each other. The Kingdom had taken out the Bucks, and that played into this as they tried to screw Cody, but it backfired on them. They worked well together, but it just never hit that next gear or got overly heated to take it to the next level.

– Cody gets back his ring of honor, and poses with Brandi & Bury. BUT BURY SHOVES DOWN CODY, UNMASKING AS KENNY OMEGA! V TRIGGER BITCH! Brandi yells at Kenny and slaps him. Kenny kisses her as revenge for Cody kissing Ibushi! Brandi yells at him an says, “go tell Ibushi about that, you liked it, you’re a fraud.” This was a great angle that got an awesome reaction.

Yes, that really happened #ROH16th pic.twitter.com/r1dHYP0dBY

— ROH Wrestling (@ringofhonor) March 10, 2018

ROH Tag Title Match: Champions The Motor City Machine Guns vs. The Briscoes: Mark is hiding at ringside, tries the sneak attack and we start off with floor brawling. The work into the ring, with the Briscoes isolating Sabin, and taking control. The Guns battle back, taking things back to the floor and hitting superkicks on Mark. Sabin follows with the suicide dive, and back in and the double teams on Mark follows, and the cover gets 2. The Briscoes battle back, with Mark hitting an apron cannonball to the floor. The Guns post the brothers, and follow with double teams on Jay. Mark got busted open by the eye, and back in Shelley attacks the busted up eye of Mark. Mark fights them off, looks for a superplex, but gets cut off and the Guns work double teams as he’s trapped in the tree of WHOA. Jay finally returns and tosses Sabin and dropkicks Shelley. The head butt follows, and then uppercuts. Mark then works over Shelley on the floor, and then looks for a dropkick and accidentally hits Jay. Sabin tags back in and hits missile dropkick and suicide dive. The Guns now double-team Mark, and Sabin hits cradle shock for 2 as Jay makes the save. But the Guns quickly cut him off and hit the dream sequence. Jay takes out Sabin with a rolling forearm, looks for Jay driller, but Sabin fights out. Jay hits the neck breaker and Mark hits froggy bow for 2. The Briscoes look for the doomsday device, but Sabin hits a victory roll for 2. Jay hits the driller on Sabin, but he kicks out at 2. The doomsday device gives us new champions. The Briscoes defeated Champions The Motor City Machine Guns @ 13:55 via pin [***] This was a good match, with the teams working well together as you’d expect, but it felt flat, due to a severe lack of crowd reaction and investment throughout. There was almost no reaction on the near falls down the stretch, especially on the Jay driller, which has been one of ROH’s most protected moves for years. The title change was expected and made sense.

ROH Title Match: Champion Dalton Castle vs. Jay Lethal: They work a basic back and forth opening stretch, with Castle looking to ground the action. Jay escapes, they work to their feet, and Castle hits a shoulder tackle and then almost gets bangarang, but Jay powders to the floor. Back in and Castle avoids a right and poses. Jay is frustrated. He then attacks, laying in strikes, but Castle cuts him off with a slam. Jay stops that with a lethal hip toss into the dropkick. Chops follow, but Castle fights off the suplex but Jay hits a head kick and covers for 2. Castle hits a throw, and follows with chops. Jay fires back with rights, but Castle drops him with a big right. Jay trips him up and pulls him to the floor. Castle hits a RANA on the floor, but Castle is now favoring his knee on the floor. The ref checks on him, he’s up and rolls back in. Jay attacks, but Castle is too slow to follow up. Jay sends him to the floor and hits a suicide dive. Jay hits a second as the ref checks on Castle again. Castle cuts off the third and Germans Jay on the floor. Castle follows with rights, but is still hobbling around. Castle posts Jay, goes for a chop, but Jay moves and Castle chops the post. Jay follows with uppercuts, and slams Castle to the announce table. Castle now slams Jay to the table, and Castle rolls back in. Jay takes out a boy and then ends up hitting a suicide dive onto the ring announcer. Cabana checks on him as the action heads back into the ring. Castle hits an overhead toss, and covers for 2. Castle looks to lock in Julie Newmar, but Jay fights it off and escapes bangarang and follows with the lethal combination for 2. Jay lays in uppercuts, lethal injection is countered but Jay hits a rolling rack slam, covering for 2. Jay follows with rights, but Castle fires back as they trade. Castle hits the dead lift German for 2. Castle follows with rights, Jay fires back and hits a cutter. The lethal injection is countered, and Castle kills him with a lariat but Jay counters bangarang into the figure four. Castle makes the ropes. Castle fights off another figure four, but Jay lays in leg kicks. They trade crazy fists, and Castle gets a roll up for 2. Lethal injection hits and Castle kicks out at 2 for a great near fall. To the apron they go, Jay lays the boots to him, takes out the knee, and looks for a cutter, Castle fights him off, but Jay dropkicks him to the floor. Jay slams him off the apron and Castle hits a German off of the apron to the floor! They slowly work to their feet, and back in the ring. They come face to face, and start trading strikes again. Both are exhausted, Jay hits a bicycle kick, enziguri and superkick, but Castle counters lethal injection, and hits banagrang’ that’s that. Champion Dalton Castle defeated Jay Lethal @ 26:06 via pin [****½] This was an excellent main event match. I have been praising Lethal as ROH’s most consistent big match performer for the past two years, and he delivered once again. Castle has been doing well as champion, but as a top guy had been lacking that really great match to hang his hat on, and he finally had it here, stepping up big time. This was laid out extremely well, from the Castle “knee injury” spot, Lethal’s aggression, the overall fire of both guys, and Castle turning into a counter punching babyface struggling to survive. Lethal was great working on top, and did it all with smart work, aggression, and not resorting to going heel to do it. This was an example of everything clicking, and both guys delivering at a top level; this was the big time main event performance that Castle needed to move on as a top guy.

– Marty Scurll arrives, challenging Castle as the show goes off the air.

– End Scene.

– Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”

8.0

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

While buzz for the show felt really low, the ROH 16th Anniversary PPV was a rather great show, It was filled with good to great wrestling, we had the surprise Austin Aries appearance, the great Kenny Omega/Cody angle, two title changes, and an excellent main event. This was an overall really fun and high quality show that flew by. The only negatives were the early streaming issues and some useless ref bumps but the good more than outweighed the bad.