ROH hails from Louisville, Kentucky this week and brand new Ring of Honor Television Champion Jay Lethal makes his first title defense against 'The Prodigy' Mike Bennett in the main event, while TJ Perkins and Mike Mondo make their TV debuts against each other and Jim Cornette's renders his decision on the number one contenders to the ROH World Tag Team Titles.
TJ Perkins vs. Mike Mondo
Recap: In a battle of a Giant Killer and Wrestling's Youngest Veteran, TJ Perkins got his first victory as a contracted ROH wrestler, defeating Mike Mondo with a La Magistral cradle after a back and forth contest. TJ used his combination of wild speed and precise technical wrestling against the more powerful Mondo but failed to hit any of his signature moves. Instead he used his superior mat-game to get it done; Mondo tried to roll him up after an errant springboard dropkick but he outmaneuvered the former Spirit Squad member and got the victory.
Review: In their pre-match interviews TJ went for the so-down-to-Earth-you-wouldn't-believe-he's-a-wrestler approach, while Mondo utilised the tried and tested shouting-80s-wrestler method. Neither was great. As for the match itself I'm quite confused about the decision that was made here. Maybe ROH assumed Mondo would be so over in Louisville that even a roll-up victory over him would make TJ look good. But to the rest of the viewing audience a local jobber got an awful lot of offense against a man the fans have been begging ROH to sign for several years, a man that more than proved he can hang with Davey Richards, a man that could conceivably main event some shows. Of course everything he did was great, but he didn't do enough of it for my liking. I'd have let him completely humiliate Mondo on the mat (who is already working a comedy heel gimmick so what does he care), knock him out with the Detonation Kick and then make him tap to the Figure Four Death Lock. Instead they rolled the dice by trying to portray him as a superior scientific wrestler who is simply more skillful than his opponents (like how Mike Quackenbush regularly wins matches with moves that are not his finisher) but in doing so they may have risked having TJ make the best possible first impression.
Jim Cornette's Decision
Cornette invited the Briscoes to the ring and declared that they would face the All-Night Express again next week and the winners would face Haas & Benjamin at Final Battle for the tag team titles. The Briscoes cut their standard “We're 6 time champions” promo and managed to get the crowd entirely on their side. Just like the last two weeks, Cornette played up the Briscoes' steel chairs attack on the champs at Best in the World, all but giving away the result of the upcoming match. Seems to me winning a Ladder War should get you the Final Battle shot and TV matches should determine who gets to face the champs on house shows, but what do I know?
Inside ROH: Final Battle Preview
Roderick Strong claims Davey only beat him because he was distracted by Richards' attack on Truth Martini and complains about the fact he's not going to be named the number one contender for the world title at Final Battle. Instead he lays out an open challenge to the world's best. Dollars to donuts says he faces TJ Perkins. Then Davey talks about moving Tony Kozina, Kyle O'Reilly and his kickboxing coach into his house so that he could train to the level of a world champion. I get that Richards really has come a long way and overcome adversity and Tony and Kyle mean a lot to him, but this is all getting a little stale to me. I miss when Davey was an unrelenting weapon of mass destruction who car
ed not for feelings or the crowd's love.
ROH Television Title Match
Jay Lethal vs. Mike Bennett
Recap: Jay Lethal retained his TV Title in his first defense when the time limit expired, keeping the belt due to the champion's advantage. Bennett dictated the pace for the majority of the contest but Lethal fired back and looked for the victory with one minute remaining after hitting the Lethal Injection. Heading up top for the Black Machismo Elbow, Lethal took a chance and it didn't pay off as Bennett rolled out of the way. The Prodigy then mounted the champion and unleashed a flurry of rights and lefts, yelling at the referee for not stopping the contest and awarding him the victory. The match continued however as Lethal had his hands up and was defending himself the entire time. Not satisfied with the draw, Lethal asked for five more minutes, but Bennett would have none of it and walked away.
Review: Yawn. This was one of the worst Ring of Honor matches I have ever seen. Mike Bennett may have set a new low in terms of in-ring performance, and while Lethal wasn't bad he didn't really contribute enough to this match to drag it up from the very depths of the sea of bad wrestling. The primary offender was the finish, with Lethal missing his finisher and instead of Bennett trying for his own, he elected to spend 25 seconds in the mount position raining down some of the weakest punches I've ever seen while Lethal blocked every last one of them by covering his head. If you're going to try for a Bennett-wants-a-KO finish then at least have it look stiff, this is a company built on brutal striking for the love of Pete. Secondly, Jay Lethal is a champion in this company and has thus far failed to win a television match within the allocated time limit. Just sayin'. To be quite honest with you I spent the majority of this match watching my television in the background as it was more exciting than seeing these two stumble around the ring without any rhyme or reason. There are a lot of things I'm not too fond of in the company I love right now, and Bennett is close to the top of that list.
Overall Thoughts
– This episode was a major step back in terms of visual quality, with an unfavorable camera angle making the building look empty and the ring look small. Likewise the main lighting was far too bright, ruining any shot that was angled upwards. All in all this looked like a random indy company and not like a wrestling promotion with a broadcast television deal. I have a hard time blaming the layout of the building as ROH ran the building in the dying days of the HDNet era and it looked gorgeous.
– As frustrating as the aesthetics were, they paled in comparison to the creative decisions. From TJ Perkins not completely squashing Mike Mondo to Davey Richards playing the same long-broken record to the abysmal main event with an event worse finish, this was easily the worst episode of the new TV series. All we can do is look ahead to better things next week with Roderick Strong wrestling Kyle O'Reilly and the Briscoes and the ANX locking horns with number one contenders status on the line.
Plugs
– There's going to be a Podcast of Honor in a couple of weeks where Ari Berenstein, Chris GST and myself will be previewing the next TV tapings and the upcoming Collinsville event that will see Davey Richards face Michael Elgin in a non-title proving ground match. We'll also probably be discussing the first 6 episodes of ROH TV so look forward to that.
– Please take a moment to read this article by Justin Houston, it's one of the best things that's ever appeared on this website, and dare I say any other wrestling website.
– Make sure to subscribe to Pro Wrestling Ponderings on iTunes, follow us on Twitter, interact with us on Facebook and just generally get involved.
I didn’t think it was anywhere near as bad as you thought. That said, I still have no idea what they see in Bennett. He’s like a stereotypical FCW student-pretty much the exact opposite of a successful wrestler in ROH. And the finish was moronic.
I enjoyed the episode, ROH is so refreshing. So many different characters and well done feuds and overall just unique. It doesn’t seem like something ROH would do to push a guy like Mike Bennett, who like the above person said, looks like someone straight from FCW. I do think he has potential though, and you can tell he really cares.
And man, I don’t care what you say… but Mike Mondo entertains the hell out of me. Just because someone comes out of the WWE doesn’t mean he needs to be squashed in the WWE. I like him.
I like Mondo as a person based on his Art of Wrestling appearance, but he does nothing for me in the ring. I have no problem with former WWE guys, I just don’t care for him and think he was only on the show because they were in Louisville and if you’re not going to bring someone in regularly I don’t see the point in giving them significant offense, particularly when it’s against someone making their debut that needs to be put over big time.
I enjoyed the actual content of the first match and the promo cut by the Briscoes, it was the booking decisions that frustrated me about this episode.
I understand what you mean, and now your point is more clear to me. If he’s not sticking around, he shouldn’t have gotten as many offensive spots as he did. I, though, would like for him to stick around.
And in my previous post, I meant to say “Just because someone comes out of the WWE doesn’t mean he needs to be squashed in ROH” not WWE. I wasn’t saying that was your opinion, that just seems to be the majority of ROH fan’s opinions.
Yeah that’s fair enough.
I don’t share the mentality that WWE = bad. I think they have plenty of talented workers, they’re just instructed to work a certain style. I’d welcome a decent portion of their roster in ROH.
I am very confused by this write-up. Not sure if it’s a review or an editorial. What exactly is your experience/knowledge in professional wrestling? I say this because you say how YOU would have booked the match between Perkins and Mondo, which by the way, would have been absolutely moronic. Because Mondo doesn’t fit the classic ROH “mold”, you want him to job out to someone half his size. How does that make sense to you? And how do you rate success in wrestling? By how many “signature moves” a guy can do? or by how much money a guy has made in wrestling? My other beef is your personal hatred for Mike Bennett. Again, another guy who doesn’t fit the ROH “mold”. This is a guy who actually gets a response from the crowd. This is a guy who actually sells. This is a guy who actually gets heat. This is a guy who is one of the best talkers in the company today. God forbid one guy has all of those attributes. Just because he doesn’t generate an “oooh-ahhh” response from the crowd doesn’t make him useless. (and newsflash, any heel who wants that kind of reaction instead of the reaction Bennett gets, is a terrible heel). Put your your biased feelings aside and just maybe, MAYBE, your reviews would have a little more credibility. If you only knew how much wrestlers like Mondo and Bennett are looked up to. These guys are money-makers. They know what they’re doing. They just proved it by your hatred toward them. I guess they’re doing their job. But keep writing your unknowledgeable, no substance “reviews”.
I don’t even know where to begin. The way I would have booked this match is the way 90% of people would have booked it; the ROH fanbase has been begging for TJ Perkins to be used regularly and they have FINALLY signed him to a contract so it’s a pretty big deal that he’s with them. The logical thing to do would be to send him out there and have him run through his stuff and get a convincing victory so new fans get to see what he’s about. Mondo is a local talent who is not signed to the company. The maths here is easy: locals job to contracted talent, particularly contracted talent. Mondo’s style or not fitting the ROH mold as you put it, has absolutely nothing to do with my feelings towards the decision. A large portion of the ROH faithful do not like Mondo in the slightest, and I don’t particularly care for him, but I don’t object to him being used when ROH runs Louisville, he knows what he’s doing in the ring and how to make the other guy look good. But that is his sole function in these situations, to make the ROH roster look good. Him being twice TJ’s size has zero bearing on how well he should do in the match. By this logic Big Show and Great Khali should have 100% records and Rey Mysterio should be a jobber. TJ’s entire gimmick is that he’s a fast, very technically sound smart mat-wrestler. Technique and speed can overcome power, it’s one of the oldest stories not just in wrestling but in all of story-telling. I don’t so much mind that Mondo got to do some stuff in the match, that’s fair, it’s that none of TJ’s signature moves have been established so the audience don’t know what they should be looking out for in the future. That’s 50% of what a squash match is for, to get a wrestler’s moves over so the fans respect them and know at what point they should become excited in a match. TJ winning with a cradle in his first match goes 100% against the grain of wrestling booking. This match would have been fine to do several weeks down the line when he’s already over, but in his debut he needed to either embarrass a jobber or have a highly competitive match against a highly-touted ROH regular that makes people think “Ooh he nearly beat him.” If you think Mike Mondo has enough status to warrant that same reaction then I don’t know what you’re smoking. Reactions to Mondo are a split between “meh” and “who?”.
I’m not sure why you asked me what wrestling success is and how that pertains to your argument. Are you saying TJ getting paid by ROH means it doesn’t matter if he has any signature moves? Or are you defending Mondo by saying he’s made a bunch of money by being with the WWE for a while? Of course money and popularity are the only true measures of what makes someone successful in wrestling, but I never called Mondo unsuccessful. And if it was about TJ not needing signature moves then that’s just plain crazy. Everybody that has ever seen John Cena knows about his 5 moves of doom. There’s a reason for that. People get up out of their seats when he starts that sequence because they can sense the end is coming. You don’t need 1000 moves like some indy fans seem to think, but you HAVE to, absolutely HAVE to, have a small handful of moves that the fans can identify and think “here we go”. That’s just basic wrestling.
As for Mike Bennett, my dislike for him pales in comparison to a massive portion of the audience. Many people outright boycott his matches, refusing to watch. On a daily basis dozens of people call for him to be released. I do neither of those things. I do not hate him. But I do not think he merits the monster push he has received because he’s not good enough in the role. “Actually gets a response from the crowd.” OK. Wow. Have you actually listened to crowds during his matches? That is not heel heat. That is not “booo we want the other guy to win.” It’s boredom. The fans do not care about him at all and want his matches to be over so they can see anyone else. Heels draw boos, he draws nothing. He is a good talker and he sells tremendously as you pointed out, he also has a fantastic look, but he is also fundamentally uninteresting. Him being anti-indy wrestling in an indy company isn’t like Mick Foley being anti-hardcore in ECW, because he was actually genuinely amazing in that role so people cheered him anyway. This is a guy the fans want to disappear from the face of the earth. Seriously, if the ROH forum still existed you could go to it and just read what people have to say about him. I cannot be the only person you’ve seen speak negatively about him, and in fairness I don’t judge him anywhere near as harshly as most. And for the record this match would have been bad if it were wrestled like this in any company, this is not a “this isn’t a traditional ROH match, I shall boo it” issue. It was boring. Plain and simple. And the finish was utterly atrocious.
Who is it you think is looking up to Mondo and Bennett? Do you have some kind of personal affiliation with them or something? Because you’re defending them far more vehemently than I criticised either of them. I have no beef with Mondo, I have a beef with whoever decided to not have TJP either squash someone or have a highly competitive match against a top-flight ROH guy in his first appearance. I have no beef with Bennett, I have beef with what they’ve done with him. They compared him to The Rock on his debut. You fundamentally can’t compare a wrestler to someone so monstrously popular and successful and have them just be Joe-FCW. Bennett isn’t terrible, but nobody can pretend he is a top level performer. The fans have rejected him at every step and he has continued to be pushed so very, very hard. At some point you have to listen to what your audience wants, and it is not him.
You said the two of them are money-makers… well, Mondo was part of a 5 person faction in the WWE that got a rub from association with the McMahons and DX. He performed in main events and was on television and PPV a lot. He probably made a decent amount of cash. But that was also 5 years ago. Most people wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line-up. I’m not one to mock wrestlers for not being in a bigger company than they are, but for you to call him a money-maker in the present tense is kind of ridiculous. He’s in OVW. And Mike Bennett? He’s got an ROH contract, sure, but so does Rhett Titus. Now I like Rhett, but is he a money maker too? Is Bennett generating money for ROH? Are extra tickets and DVDs being sold to fans who desperately want to see his matches? Is his merchandise flying off the shelves? The answer to that is a resounding NO. If anything it’s the opposite. Fans are less inclined to watch ROH shows that he is on. They skip his matches. That’s not being a good heel, that’s being dull. They didn’t “prove” anything by my “hated towards them.” I have to watch every episode because it’s my job to review this television show. But if it wasn’t then I would have stopped watching this episode after TJ’s match because I don’t want to see Mike Bennett. I want to see Alberto Del Rio and Cody Rhodes because they’re fantastic foils to the WWE babyfaces. Mike Bennett does nothing for me at all.
I will continue to write my reviews sir, because as I said, that’s my job. I’m sorry that you feel there’s no substance to them, or that I’m biased, but we’ll have to respectfully disagree on that. My job is to give my thoughts on the episodes each week, and that’s what I do. This episode was not good, TJ Perkins was mishandled in his debut, Mike Bennett’s match was boring, and the finish was so poorly executed it was cringe-worthy. That’s how I felt, that’s what I wrote. You are every bit as entitled to your opinion as me, and you are welcome to write your own reviews if you so choose.