Image provided courtesy of Ring Of Honor.

By Nicholas Jason Lopez

“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on recent television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.

(Aired 10/14/15)

All Night Long

– The Fourth Match in the Best-Of-Five Series between Matt Sydal and ACH saw highlights of ACH beating Sydal at All-Star Extravaganza VII to get the 2-1 advantage. Going in, we knew Sydal had pressure to win or the series would end. Would be nice if there was a prize for the winner like a Title shot or something like that, but the match itself was great. We saw both guys’ usual athleticism, with harsh kicks and chops, having a “video game battle” feel through it all. ACH countering a Frankensteiner by landing on his feet was insane, while Sydal showed a more sinister side at times. The match’s final minute was super crazy, right from ACH’s top rope kick to Sydal finally hitting the Shooting Star press to get the win, establishing that it’d be going to a match five. The Addiction plus Chris Sabin suddenly hit the ring, laying both guys out. Good commercial hook to see what these guys wanted.

– The Addiction-All Night Express in-ring promo exchange was a solid one, continuing from the Pay-Per-View where The Addiction challenged the Tag Team Champions The Kingdom to come out, arguing that they were never formally pinned, thus not defeated and deserved their Belts back. ANX had the best cue to come out since a heel-heel segment would’ve been awkward. Just imagine how casual viewers must’ve felt seeing Kenny King on both Impact and ROH, probably thinking he works for both companies. Either way, the crowd was all for ANX and King logically brought up that ANX were also never pinned to lose their Tag Titles way back when and set up a bout to “settle the argument.” This match would probably also have Tag Title implications in it and to our delight, it was later announced on the show that Matchmaker Nigel McGuinness made it official for next week. Also announced for next week was a No Disqualification match between Jay Briscoe and Adam Page, as well as Adam Cole explaining why he turned on Kyle O’Reilly and cost him the ROH World Championship. Sweet.

– We had more continuity from the PPV when we saw Silas Young and “the only guy who understands him” The Beer City Bruiser come out pushing around Dalton Castle’s Boys, since they now belonged to Young. Commentary was smart to mention that nobody had heard from Castle since ASE, which would explain why he never made the save, but it made us wonder just why he’d abandon his Boys. Anyways, we saw Young’s first lesson described as “taking a beating like a real man,” besides stripping away their “Dalton-isms” like the masks and being barefoot. Impromptu match, you say? Let’s get to it. This was mostly BCB throwing around The Boys until they made a brief comeback which involved a spot where they “rode” BCB (kind of awkward, but sort of funny) but all the momentum stopped when Young got involved, essentially walloping The Boys with his finisher to get the win. Some worthy development here and we’re intrigued to see where it leads. Just wish we knew more about BCB before he got sent out there like that.

– Since the main event was described as Takaaki Watanabe’s “biggest match to date,” we thought his shot at the ROH World Television Championship against Champion Jay Lethal would be more memorable than what we got. There was a lot of focus on Lethal being full of himself and milking in the crowd’s positive reaction which he referenced he didn’t need with a fun gesture later on. Lethal dominated throughout, which we thought would build to a brief moment where it looked like Watanabe would kick it into second gear and turn this into a marquee match, but alas, that moment never came and instead, this match was used to get over the Truth Martini/Lethal duo using dirty tactics to get themselves the win, as Martini slid the stupid Book Of Truth into the ring, which distracted the Referee, allowing Lethal to use a low-blow/Lethal Injection combo to get the win. That said, we got a fair glimpse into the future when we saw Lethal react to loud chants for AJ Styles, the new number-one contender for Lethal’s ROH World Championship. A fair way to close things out. This show was about filling in the episodical gaps that made it feel like a worthy followup to ASE, now let’s just hope it stays that way.

Quick Results

• Best-Of-Five Series – Match 4 – Matt Sydal def. ACH via pinfall; Series Tied 2-2
• Silas Young/Beer City Bruiser def. The Boys via pinfall
• ROH World Television Championship – Jay Lethal (w/Truth Martini) def. Takaaki Watanabe via pinfall to retain