ROH TV Episode 21

2/11/12

After noting Jay Lethal earned a ROH World title shot in two weeks, our announcers Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness pimped the main event of the ROH World Tag Team champions The Briscoes vs. The House of Truth of Roderick Strong and Michael Elgin where both teams have put up $5000.  The winning team will walk away with the $10,000 they didn’t win at “Northern Aggression”. But up first, bad blood spills over when Eddie Edwards takes on Kyle O’Reilly. Lets hear what these two had to say before the match.

Kyle explained that Eddie’s opinion of O’Reilly - being a liar and a crap stirrer - would be changed by the end of the night. While Edwards admitted that he didn’t trust O’Reilly, or like the fact that Davey believed Kyle over Edwards, but all that mattered was who could win tonight. Edwards felt Kyle certainly bit off more than he can chew by challenging the former ROH World champ.

Eddie Edwards vs. Kyle O’Reilly

We actually got an honorable handshake before the intense feeling out process. Eddie proved his grappling superiority by almost pinning Kyle off of a front face lock. When the fight turned into a striking battle, Kyle kept up with Eddie, leading to a stalemate after their respective dropkicks failed. The action neared the ropes, and allowed O’Reilly to connect with a couple of kicks and knees that actually allowed Kyle to get a near fall to the shock of everyone. Eddie got to his feet, slipping around O’Reilly before kicking him off the apron, into the barricades. Eddie rolled Kyle back in, missing that double stomp off the top.

Edwards turned the failed cradle after his missed maneuver into Davey Richards’ Ankle Lock. This brought out the ROH World champion to cheer on Kyle. Edwards couldn’t believe how Davey was supporting O’Reilly over his fellow Wolf, losing his grip in the process when Kyle crawled to the ropes before we headed to our first commercial break.

Coming back from the break, we found Eddie Edwards kicking his way to an advantage. Kyle fired back with kicks of his own, using the strikes to set up those rolling butterfly suplexes turned into a cross arm bar. Thankfully for Edwards, he was close enough to the ropes to save himself. The fans were actually in full support of O’Reilly as he charged Edwards. Eddie caught him running with a back elbow to set up the lung blower. Rather than go for the pin, Eddie went for a suplex. Suddenly, Eddie fell back, not realizing how close to the ropes they were. Both men tumbled over the top rope, to the floor!

Eddie recovered quickly, looking to kick Kyle’s head off as O’Reilly pulled himself up by using the steel ring post. Kyle ducked at the last second, causing Eddie to kick the steel ring post! Kyle’s attention moved to Eddie’s hurt appendage, wearing the former World champion out. Eddie tried to fight back, but ended up in the Ankle Lock. Suddenly, Kyle’s Future Shock partner Adam Cole came to ringside. Rather than cheer Kyle on, Adam yelled, “Come on, Eddie!”

Kyle let go of the submission to confront Cole on the floor after Edwards made it to the ropes, leaving himself wide open for a tope from Edwards. Eddie rallied himself to the top rope, hitting the double stomp, but his legs buckled and he didn’t get enough of the attack to pin Kyle. “This is awesome!” rang out as Eddie and Kyle exchanged forearms in the ring’s middle. Kyle turned it up a notch, looking for that leg sweep. Eddie avoided the sweep, kicking Kyle in the face. A la Kenta Kobashi, Eddie started knife-edge chopping Kyle’s jaw after taking a flying knee strike. Somehow, O’Reilly survived the strikes, catching Eddie with a Regalplex … for a near fall!

Lariat by Eddie when Kyle hit the ropes for momentum didn’t help him when he picked up Kyle for Die Hard instead of going for the pin. Kyle turned the finisher into the guillotine choke. Eddie turned his standing base into a pinning predicament. Kyle was able to kick out right before the three count. Before O’Reilly could get off the mat, Eddie grabbed his boot for the Achilles Lock. Kyle hastily countered the attack by small packaging Edwards. Using his momentum against him, Eddie turned the pinning predicament on Kyle. Before O’Reilly could realize what just happened, the referee’s head hand hit the mat for the three count.

After the match, Eddie grabbed the microphone to ask Adam Cole if he really had a tag team partner with Kyle O’Reilly focusing on his team alongside Davey Richards. Eddie decided to give Cole the chance to form a new team alongside Edwards. After much reluctance, and protests from O’Reilly, Adam Cole shook hands with Edwards to a great ovation.

After the commercial break, Steve Corino was at the announce table because he’s the new DVD color commentator. This segued into Kevin Steen’s return to ROH TV from last week. The confrontation between Kevin Steen and Jim Cornette led to the piledriver being banned; which means no more Kevin Steen Package Piledriver. What about the Jay Driller? That’s a piledriver. I know Jay’s got to be mad.

Mike Mondo vs. Matt Taven

The grappling and arm drag exchange ended when Mondo used a simple right forearm to drop Taven. A dropkick by Mondo rocked Taven, but Matt recovered shortly after, hitting a moonsault for a two count. Leg lariat by Taven, but no three count due to him not hooking the leg according to Corino. Both men missed the cross body block and dropkick attempts. As the fans become enamored in calling Taven Pauly Shore, Kevin Steen’s voice rang out.

Kevin Steen came to the ring to wonder aloud how these two are getting TV time when he has to wait until next week to make his ROH TV in-ring debut. Feigning the Code of Honor after mocking Taven’s body being something Jim Cornette would like to admire, Steen F5’ed Matt. Mondo felt great about the situation until Steen bit Mondo’s right ear to set up an F5 for him. Steen’s attention turned Corino, bringing out security to stop this brewing situation.

This week on Inside ROH, Kevin Kelly recapped last week’s main event happenings that saw everything break loose once again between The Briscoes and Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team, leading to Mark Briscoe getting knocked out by a Shelton Benjamin chair shot. In the locker room, WGTT celebrated the fact that they left Mark lying. Benjamin informed Cornette, and everyone for that matter, that he’s not paying another fine. And if Cornette and ROH want the money, they can sue him. Cornette countered by stating that Shelton is suspended until he pays up.

The Briscoes yelled about their disgust over WGTT calling them “losers.” According to Jay, Dem Boys don’t see losers, but pure gold when they look in the mirror. Jay and Mark’s attention turned to the “10th Anniversary Show” and their title defense against The Young Bucks, a.k.a. “The Pretty Boys.” In a classic line, Jay said, “I don’t know if we should kick ya’ll’s asses, or buy you flowers.” Forgetting about the flowers, Jay promised to end ROH’s return to NYC still the ROH Tag Team champion alongside his brother.

Speaking of ROH’s next iPPV title matches, Kelly announced that Tommaso Ciampa will get his TV title shot against Jay Lethal at the “10th Anniversary Show”.

ROH World Tag Team champions The Briscoes vs. The House of Truth w/Truth Martini

Remember, this is for $10,000 as both teams have put up half the money so the winning team can be compensated for their loss during “Northern Aggression’s” historic eight-man tag match.

As the men pair up, Jim Cornette entered the announce table to announce the “10th Anniversary Show” main event now being Team Ambition of Davey and O’Reilly vs. Edwards and Adam Cole. In the ring, Mark needed help from his brother to stop the double team assault by The HOT. Jay ran in, teaming with his brother to dropkick Roderick’s face. The champs were in complete control by beating down Strong to the enjoyment of the crowd. Double Briscoe shoulder tackle on Roderick also gained The Briscoes a two count. It wasn’t until Jay went for that downward spiral into the turnbuckles did The Briscoes lose their advantage when Strong grabbed the top rope to cause Jay to lose his grip and hit the turnbuckle the back of his head first.

Strong tagged out, allowing the big man to come in and power slam Jay. Jay recovered, tagging out so he and his brother could drop the big man. Elgin survived the double teams, including Mark’s iconoclasm into Jay’s frog splash as we headed to our last commercial break.

Back to live action, Elgin was still in a bad way as The Briscoes cornered “Unbreakable”. Elgin took Mark’s strikes, catching him with that spinning sidewalk slam. Strong tagged in, chopping and forearming Mark. A leaping knee strike didn’t put Mark down, nor did Roderick chopping Mark into Michael’s suplex sidewalk slam. The crowd was louder than ever to get Mark to his corner. Mark was unable to capitalize on the fans’ help by taking a gut-buster-clothesline double team from The HOT. An enzuguri by Roderick allowed him to put Mark on the top rope. Mark stopped the superplex, getting behind Strong before kicking him in the head. Mark rolled to his corner, tagging in a fired up Jay.

A super kick for Strong and clothesline on Elgin from Jay. Jay’s spine buster couldn’t stop Strong. The falcon arrow by Jay set up Mark’s Frog Elbow, but it didn’t put Strong down. Jay and Mark were doing everything in their power to stop their respective opponents. Elgin stopped Jay’s assault on him by back dropping the eldest Briscoe to the floor. Jay jumped to his feet, getting powder thrown in his eyes by Martini.

Jay was blind and furious. After flushing his eyes out with some water, Jay walked to the back. Jay quickly returned with a baseball bat! Jay slipped into the ring, cracking Elgin in the abdomen with the bat! The referee called for the bell as Jay clubbed Roderick as well.

Even though they were disqualified, The Briscoes grabbed the checks before getting the fans to declare them the true money owners.

Next week, Kevin Steen makes his ROH TV in-ring debut!

Overall: I’ll cut right to the point and say this was one of the best episodes of ROH TV from an in-ring perspective to date. Kyle O’Reilly had a star-making performance here against Eddie Edwards. If this match was a little longer and on iPPV, it would be one of those encounters that would turn O’Reilly’s career on its ears. And the best part was the match itself was only a small part of an even bigger story involving Davey, Kyle, Eddie, and Cole. The main event, while obviously different from the opener, also told a great story that saw The Briscoes’ dominant offense be subdued by Elgin’s size and Roderick’s quick thinking. The argument could be made that the end left something to be desired since it’s the second week in a row that the show ended with a disqualification, but it can’t be denied that the fans (including “240 Radio’s” Alex Goff” absolutely loved Jay whacking people with a bat. Once again, ROH needs to be careful in doing things like main event disqualifications week after week; especially when you’re promoting yourself as an alternative to the insulting endings other companies deliver.

Other than that, nothing was unwatchable. Kevin Steen stopping a very mundane match bordering on indy-riffic levels was perfect. And the fact that he set up the F5 on Mondo by biting his ear was simply brilliant as he looked plain sadistic. WGTT are truly embracing their spot as The Briscoes’ antagonists rather than it being the other way around; and it works great. This is a highly recommendable show for old, new, and inquisitive fans alike.