Ring of Honor in 2020 (and beyond?): 18 Years Old and Barely Stable!

[King Kamala]

Brody King Vs RUSH for the ROH World Title is the main event of Final Battle 2020.

I can get behind that. Love me some Brody King.

 

[King Kamala]

Kenny King tested positive for COVID-19 and will be out for Final Battle. Although I don't think he was in any announced matches, I'm assuming he would have been there at least to second RUSH.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

A 10 match card, for their return to PPV. That's a long show.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1336423088192434177

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1336411468900798468

Lock up your daughters!

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

I'll have to find it once I can get back on to Twitter, but someone posted a side by side of a post from 2017, and it's almost the exact picture. So either he's wearing the same clothes and doing the same pose 3 years later, or he's just reposting it.

 

[King Kamala]

I'm still starting to lean against ordering Final Battle between possible return of Marty and this overly long, not particularly exciting card. My excitement from the Pure Title tournament has mostly worn off.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

I'm happy for Tony Deppen, but that's not enough for me to care about ordering.

Why not just highlight certain talent? I know they want to get all the titles on the show, but Gresham is pulling double duty, and the tag match is just so random. Why is Mark teaming with PCO? Why is Flip, a high flyer, going for the Pure Title?

 

[King Kamala]

It seems like they put so much time and care into the Pure Tournament then forgot about everything else.

Even the World Title match, I love Brody King but it seems very sudden to put him as #1 contender considering he's been a tag guy for 90% of his run.

 

[RedJed]

Yeah, the TV hasnt really built this ppv particularly well (but the in-ring on the TV has been steadily solid) but on paper the ppv card looks decent, if not a bit overinflated, but I'd much rather have a ROH show with loads of talents instead of a watered down toned down lineup I guess. Hopefully they watch match times though as this could easily go 4 hours plus.

The rules of the pure tag match seems unique a bit, did ROH ever do this concept with pure tag rules before? I like the idea of that a partner breaking up a pin will have a limit to it in a match like this.

I would guess Marty returning, and maybe others, will be the big talk coming out of this show. That's one thing ROH needs, is a real buzz factor of surprises coming out of this one. A few of the matches on paper have potential to be strong too. Although the main doesn't exactly impress me.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Nothing say buzz like bringing back someone named during Speaking Up. That'll kill them before they ever get back going.

 

[King Kamala]

I almost think they’ll let him return before the crowds return cause they don’t know how the hell the fans will react and if it will be a distraction.


It will be interesting to see how fans react to #SpeakingOut guys returning. My guess is that they are banking on people having short memories and that is honestly not a horrible bet considering mentality of many wrestling fans.

 

[King Kamala]

Also has anyone brought up the fact hat Brody King is wrestling KENTA for the NJPW US Title on the same night as Final Battle.

If the “All the non WWE promotions are going to be working together!” rumors are true...that would be an amazing opportunity for cross promotion. But I doubt they are (and the NJPW match was likely taped weeks/months ago) and I am assuming he loses both matches .

I do love that kayfabe is alive and well enough that Brody King has to pretend on Facebook that he is wrestling in two matches at the same time across the country from each other!

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Also has anyone brought up the fact hat Brody King is wrestling KENTA for the NJPW US Title on the same night as Final Battle.

If the “All the non WWE promotions are going to be working together!” rumors are true...that would be an amazing opportunity for cross promotion. But I doubt they are (and the NJPW match was likely taped weeks/months ago) and I am assuming he loses both matches .

I do love that kayfabe is alive and well enough that Brody King has to pretend on Facebook that he is wrestling in two matches at the same time across the country from each other!

Chris Bey has the title match against Swann for Impact and the Super J Cup for NJPW on Saturday night. It's good to work for companies that film in advance.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

First hour of Final Battle, including the 4 way for the #1 contender to the TV title, will air free.

 

[King Kamala]

Hell yeah. That works for me since I'm leaning towards skipping the show and just watching the NJPW USA show that night.

 

[King Kamala]

Catching up on last two shows on my day off and I'm still enjoying the shows. I really really like them changing the style of interviews to make them more subtle and understated. It's really helped improve the non wrestling segments 1000x. It makes guys like Shane Taylor and Vincent tolerable and makes the decent to good promos even better. It definitely helps ROH define themselves as the most realistic, sports based promotion by not having screaming angry wrestlers all the time.

Also after me talking about New Generation era WWF's habit of debuting sidekicks by having them show up in Christmas giftboxes in the WWF B/C/D show thread, I FRIGGIN LOVED that Mark Briscoe opened up a gift box to find PCO. I honestly feel like Mark Briscoe and PCO joining together in craziness to face off the straight laced Foundation is angle that could be really really fun with some time but it just feels thrown together way ROH has done it. I still think it could be a really fun styles clash though.

 

[Epic Springs]

EC3 tested positive for COVID so him and Jay Briscoe is off of Final Battle.

 

[King Kamala]

If I'm Delirious (the booker not the feeling), I'd just put Jay back with Mark against The Foundation for the Tag Team Titles and make the TV Title a Triple Threat and move PCO there.

 

[Laz]

If I'm in any sort of booking capacity for ROH, I don't let the Briscoes team with anybody but each other outside of having a third man they alternate with. Too great a team to keep apart.

 

[King Kamala]

Agreed. Occasional singles run is OK but why the hell have them as a PART time tag team with rotating partners!?

 

[Baby Shoes]

I don’t know if it’s my spotty history of watching Ring of Honor but I’ve never cared about the Briscoes.

Probably just the Wes Brisco fanboy in me

 

[Epic Springs]

They're far from their prime but they're still a decent tag team. Too late in the game for any company outside ROH to really benefit from signing them but they still mostly pull out solid performances.

 

[Laz]

If you watched their feuds with Steenerico and the KOW and didn't feel they were special then I'm not sure we're operating on the same wavelength.

 

[King Kamala]

PCO's new catchphrase being "REST...IN HELL" further proves that he should never talk. It really seems like he's trying hard to be the successor to The Undertaker but he really just comes across like a The Asylum films version of The Undertaker.

 

[King Kamala]

Maria Kanellis-Bennett, not surprisingly, is back in ROH. In some kind of authority figure role and it implies that the next ROH show in January will be INTERACTIVE so me and @Baby Shoes can yell on social media about how Beer City Bruiser should get a World Title shot.

Did this video give anyone else porn-y vibes? Especially the music.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Is it just me or has Rhett Titus somehow managed to become less charismatic over time?

 

[King Kamala]

To be fair, this current gimmick, he is supposed to a faceless, dead eyed lackey. Problem lies in the fact that his "charismatic" past gimmicks are so bad that no one is going to care when he inevitably gets up and turns on The Foundation. Besides everyone else in The Foundation (except maybe Lethal and even then most ROH fans really like him) is so good that I can't see the fans cheering for Rhett over them.

I think Rhett is actually decent as a goofy undercard heel to work with younger talent but anytime they try to give him a push and make him serious, I'm like "ugh no!"

 

[Baby Shoes]

I haven’t watched closely but I was watching last week’s show when I post that. They were showing clips of him hamming it up in All Night Express while he almost emotionally talked about doing this for his family. It was almost too solemn but I didn’t realize that was the role they have put him in as I haven’t closely watched much of the current product.

 

[King Kamala]

Well, it's not one of the better aspects of current ROH. I haven't watched this week but I'm leaning against it since it was one of those weird vacuum, almost entirely storyline-less shows since it aired before Final Battle in some markets. Normally they air clip shows but I think ROH has aired enough damn clip shows for a while. Next clip show on their docket probably would have been Best of Rhett Titus...

 

[Baby Shoes]

Honestly this week’s show the item that caught my attention most was that I apparently got the DVR recording from Fox Sports Midwest and they had a commercial hyping Collin Sexton and the Cavaliers.

I appreciated their Best Of shows during the pandemic but nothing has really grabbed me yet on their empty arena shows since they’ve been back.