Ring of Honor flew high and far for a jam-packed show in Dayton, Ohio this past Saturday, reportedly filling up the Montgomery County Fairgrounds with a standing-room only crowd. It was the latest in what has become an amazingly busy four-month period for Ring of Honor that included the 12th Anniversary Show last month and a successful Milwaukee-Chicago two-show weekend earlier in March.
This show in Dayton paves the way for Ring of Honor’s next big showcase events: Supercard of Honor 8 weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana; and the two-weekend ROH vs. New Japan cross-overs in Toronto and New York City in May, which just seem to become bigger and better with every new announcement of the talent that will be involved.
For now though, let’s fly back to this past weekend in Dayton and break down three of the more interesting and ongoing developments to come out of the show. Of course I’m doing this without seeing any of the matches, so no judgments about the in-ring efforts here, just the storyline news and some analysis to follow:
MAIN EVENT-Momentum Continues to Roll for AJ Styles, Kevin Steen and The Briscoes: By now the booking direction of the company is becoming clearer as far as who ROH is choosing to put over on these shows and what it means for their momentum and meaning as draws for the show.
AJ Styles has been undefeated since returning to Ring of Honor, going over Chris Hero via submission here in Dayton, which was Hero’s own backyard. The one minor asterisk is his time-limit draw with Michael Elgin. At some point, if Styles is sticking around for the back half of 2014, it has to be asked-when does Styles get his crack at the ROH World Title? AJ Styles versus ROH World Champion Adam Cole is on paper one of the most-potential-filled encounters ROH has in its back pocket for 2014.
Speaking of someone who has a world title shot in his back pocket, Kevin Steen goes over huge this weekend, both in his planned singles match against Bobby Fish (winning via DQ) and in the impromptu tag match that occurred with him teaming up with RD Evans (more about him later) to fight Fish and Kyle O’Reilly (a.k.a. former ROH World Tag Team Champions reDRagon). Steen is on a roll and heading towards two huge matches-a definite title bout against champion Adam Cole at Global Wars on May 10th, and against Michael Elgin one month before that at Supercard. That will be Steen and Elgin’s third singles match in about a three-year period, wherein the previous two have been amazing Match of the Year contenders. The winner gets slotted up against IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada, so that’s a possible third major match Steen could wrestle for ROH.
Finally, The Briscoes have been built up in 2014, especially the “Real World Champion” Jay Briscoe. Jay hasn’t been pinned or submitted in a singles match since returning from his injury last summer and continues to lay claim that this entitles him to be known as the true ROH champion. It is smart booking, because it gives Jay a claim of some legitimacy even though the title’s lineage continued with the belt Adam Cole wears (after it was declared vacant in the summer of 2013). Mark Briscoe has been through some ups and downs over the last few months, but he is booked remarkably well when teaming up with his brother. The Briscoes went over World Champion Adam Cole and Michael Bennett (newly dubbed by Maria as Team MMA Bay-Bay) in Dayton.
Once again, Jay Briscoe went over Cole and that is now twice in two months. Ladder War V- the title “unification” bout at Supercard of Honor 8-is coming up.
Momentum is the name of the game for Styles, Steen and The Briscoes. They have a lot of it, and it will hopefully be put to good use down the line.
THE MID CARD-Cedric Alexander Begins to Steal the Show: A lot of people have been saying to expect big things from Cedric Alexander, even going as far back as a few years ago. Now ROH has given Alexander that big chance to shine. He split off from his C&C Wrestle Factory tag team partner Caprice Coleman to focus more clearly on singles competition. Since then he became embroiled in his first major singles feud against Roderick Strong, who (along with Decade stablemates Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer) has taken exception to Alexander’s “disrespect” of the veterans.
Alexander has been booked to remain undeterred in the face of their bullying tactics while also beginning to impress the fans at shows with his in-ring performance. He did it again last night, with the help of his opponent Michael Elgin. Their match was reportedly the show stealer, with many tweets being sent in response to the match with the notice to check it out as soon as possible. The people at the show saw the match, so let’s take their word for it.
OPENING BOUT-#THENEWSTREAK Continues, Unabated: RD Evans has established himself quietly as one of the best comedic acts in ROH, but his new streak of wins is no laughing matter. Evans has traveled all over the world to wrestle the best talent around (as far as can be seen through his various YouTube videos, although one could wonder at the veracity of these claims given the absence of clear locations). The result is seemingly unparalleled success.
Evans has not lost since starting this #THENEWSTREAK movement. This is against top tier talent, the likes of Michael Elgin and Dennis Rodman. I hear he even went over the great and legendary Power Uti, although that is just rumor and conjecture at this point. Evans is doing well even in ROH, winning fantastic and athletic contests against Woozy Whosis and Alex Whateverhisnamewas. The current record after this weekend’s show in Dayton is now 65-0. Evans won his scheduled match (a four corner survival) and then joined Kevin Steen as his partner in an impromptu tag team BONUS attraction bout. The result was a win via disqualification, but a win nonetheless.
There is seemingly no end in sight as to how far and how great this #THENEWSTREAK will go. Maybe as far as the ROH World Title? Hey, no one thought it could happen with Gillberg. Or Goldberg.
Other Moments, If You Missed Them: The Decade continues to rack up wins, going over Adrenaline Rush & Caprice Coleman and Tomasso Ciampa retained his TV Title over Matt Taven.
For more results and information about the Raising the Bar weekend shows, check out PWP’s full results coverage here.