The One-Liner Review: ROH Best in the World 2017

The IWC is filled with snowflake ratings and recaps for big wrestling events … but that’s a lot of work. This isn’t one of those columns. What follows is one line (or so) about every wrestler or team who worked ROH’s Best in the World 2017 event. I was there live! These are the stray thoughts and pointless musings that filled one lazy man’s mind while watching the show.

Coast 2 Coast – Sounds like the first pre-show match didn’t make the pay-per-view broadcast. Anyway, Leon St. Giovanni looks like the guy who’s tagging with Shaheem Ali until Ali finds a better tag team partner. LSG is fine in the ring, but Ali is going places.

Flip Gordon – If you see Flip Gordon is working a featured match at a venue near you, break your piggybank and go see it. Gravity doesn’t affect him like the rest of us. In a very short time he’s going to be one of those guys everybody’s raving about on the Internet.

The Tempura Boyz – Sho Tanaka and Yohei Komatsu are on loan from New Japan, perhaps in the hopes they can develop some ring charisma. Looks like it’s working. They made a dark match way more fun than it had any right to be.

Cheeseburger – You know how some wrestlers claim they’re just fans who got lucky enough to work in the business? Cheeseburger weighs maybe a buck twenty when he’s wet and spent the whole main show watching from the perimeter of the floor seats. He is definitely a fan who got lucky enough to work in the business.

Mandy Leon – Too sexy to be viewed unfiltered by the human eye. If you look directly at her, you will do Tex Avery things.

Kris Wolf – Impossibly tiny. She’s like teacup human.

Sumie Sakai – I know this is stereotyping, but I expect a female Japanese wrestler to be way more violent than Sakai. No one was in danger of losing a tooth. It was like watching a Samoan who doesn’t do headbutts.

Deonna Purrazzo – One of the cool things about indie wrestling is a lot of folks are works in progress. That applies here. Should have announced her as “Deonna Purrazzo, she’s figuring things out.”

The Kingdom – Matt Taven, Vinny Marseglia and TK O’Ryan have got entrances down. Nice touch with O’Ryan (who has an injured foot) entering via wheelchair. Taven even hit a picture perfect tope con hilo. Yet all you had to do was look over at the Spanish announcer table to realize these guys weren’t beating the CMLL team.

El Terrible – Looks like a guy who wandered in off the street and declared that he can kick a lot of ass.

Ultimo Guerrero – Does his name mean he’s the last Guerrero? And why does he look like a downsized Tatanka?

Lucha tag rules – They should be the standard tag rules. So much more fluid when you can roll out of the ring to get your teammate in.

Frankie Kazarian – Kicked off what would be a lot of spitting on the night. That’s just not sanitary.

Adam Page – Maybe it was kayfabe, because he got hung from the ropes, but he didn’t get to be part of the Bullet Club celebration later in the night. Couldn’t they have stolen TK O’Ryan’s wheelchair?

Todd Sinclair – A ref worth the price of admission. When Page grabbed the leather strap with the nails in it, Sinclair had a dead-on Droopy Dog look that conveyed, “Oh dear, this isn’t going to end well.”

Alex Shelley – I am still baffled as to why he never became a bigger star in this business.

Chris Sabin – Works seamlessly with Shelley. Currently they’re part of the Search & Destroy faction, which would have had to break up if they lost the match. No idea if that would have applied to the Motor City Machine Guns as well, but I’m glad we don’t have to contemplate living in a universe where that happens.

Kenny King – The Rebellion lost the match, which makes him a free agent. Are you paying attention Shaheem Ali?

Shane Taylor – His milkshake brings the boys to the yard.

Jay White – At one point Taylor threatened to propel his considerable bulk over the ropes for a suicide dive only to be cut off by White. Biggest heel move ever, and by the supposed face team.

Rhett Titus – Also a free agent. Are you paying attention Shaheem Ali?

Caprice Coleman – Is going to look like he’s chiseled out of stone when he’s 80.

Jonathan Gresham – So short he ought to be in a mask. He’s almost a maxi mini.

Punishment Martinez – Who names their kid Punishment?

The Beer City Bruiser – They say the camera adds ten pounds, but where would you put it?

Silas Young – At one point Jay Lethal had a grip on the front of his tights for a vertical suplex spot and we came dangerously to finding out if Young is indeed the last real man.

Jay Lethal – Got beaten down for 10 minutes after the match, causing my friend Bryan to ponder, “Doesn’t Jay Lethal have any friends?”

Grudge matches – Should not be decided by cradle rollups.

Dalton Castle – The most over talent in ROH finally won his first belt. It felt like the dawn of a new empire. Might be the greatest moment in human history.

The Boys – Never forget that they’re valets. They didn’t even attempt a wrestling move. Closest they came was Castle using them as projectiles.

Mark Briscoe – You know his brother Jay is out of control when Mark has to step as the voice of reason. Yeah, pay attention to that guy with the missing front teeth because he’s the one making sense.

Jay Briscoe – Is obsessed with boys.

Bully Ray – Bust out dance moves that easily are worth an extra * in the snowflake ratings.

Marty Scurll – Dominated his match to such an extent that he clearly had no chance of winning.

KUSHIDA – Wore a Time Splitters t-shirt because you never really get over Alex Shelley. In his quiet moments, Kevin Nash goes into a room alone to watch Paparazzi Productions footage.

The Young Bucks – Someday maybe you’ll love something half as much as Matt and Nick Taylor love super kicks.

War Machine – In the future, if you’re reading an American history book that doesn’t mention the moment where Hanson hit the suicide flip from the corner post to the outside onto the Bucks and the Best Friends, then you’re reading an incomplete and woefully inadequate account of our nation’s major achievements..

Best Friends – When Chuck Taylor and Trent develop some hug-based offense, they will be unstoppable.

Christopher Daniels – Crawled back into the ring just in time to beat a 20 count. Honestly, will heel champs ever buy a clue? Also, hidden highlight the cameras may not have picked up was Daniels staggering away from the ring afterward covered in streamers.

Cody – Fans chanted “You deserve it!” after the match, but I watched it and I’m thinking maybe he didn’t.

How to tell heels from faces – I know Cody claims to be anti-ROH and Daniels helped put the promotion on the map, but when one guy has American flags on his boots and the other dresses like a Nazi, that’s all you need to know. Nazis are bad.