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 11/4/15)

Three-Way Junction

– An actual opening video to start the show? Hot dog. This perfectly hyped the blockbuster three-way main event between Kyle O’Reilly, AJ Styles and Adam Cole. O’Reilly was the sympathetic figure bent on revenge against the friend who stabbed him in the back and was itching to get his hands on him so he could make him feel the pain that he went through. You could feel the rage in his intensity and tone. O’Reilly’s mic skills have also noticeably improved lately.

– The Young Bucks-Boys match started out as the Bucks facing Silas Young/Beer City Bruiser, where we saw Young had the Boys dressed like “real men” – hair slicked back, shades, grey tank tops, blue jeans and black shoes. Good storyline progress here, as we expected Young/Bruiser to bully around the Boys. The Bucks make it look too easy in the ring, and their popularity with the crowd also adds a positive factor into their bouts. The action here was energetic, thanks to the Bucks’ lightning-quick athleticism and clever double-team maneuvers. Young even took to the air a couple times, but when he found the Bucks were too much on the advantage, he sent in the Boys to “finish the job.” The three-man commentary team involved Kevin Kelly, Mark Briscoe and Matchmaker Nigel McGuinness, who apparently didn’t have a problem with this. We figured it’d be a quick, painless squash for the Boys to be put down quickly by the Bucks, but Dalton’s Boys actually showed some fight and future potential as a team. This was a conflicted move since you now had babyface Bucks taking on the sympathetic Boys, but the Bucks carry themselves like cool heels and defended them later, so it balanced out. It was also cool to see the Bucks work in their inventive spots to take out Young/Bruiser outside the ring. Fun finish to this as well, and it made sense for the Bucks to win this, since it gave Young an excuse to further bully the Boys, which in turn set up the Bucks to save them by Superkicking Bruiser. Young got to leave this unscathed thankfully.

– Somewhere in this show, we saw BJ Whitmer get in Mark Briscoe and McGuiness’ faces, which made sense given how he was laid out by King Corino last time he was on TV. Obviously, Corino faced some undisclosed disciplinary action, but alas, it remained undisclosed. This kept that going a little bit. Also discussed was McGuinness being served papers by Veda Scott before the show, promising a day in court. Going to see where that one goes, but it seems awfully anticlimactic thus far.

– With Roderick Strong set to take on ROH World/Television Champion Jay Lethal for the TV Title soon, it made sense for us to see Strong in a contest where he’d get to show off his deadly in-ring repertoire. Will Ferrara provided a good challenge here, even though it made the result predictable. At least Ferrara got to work in a couple of cool spots like a tornado DDT and received a near-fall. Strong caused Ferrara’s right eye to swell up during the match, which actually enhanced the storytelling. Strong won with his Strong Hold submission finisher. We loved Kelly mentioning that Strong never used the submission move in his two losses to Lethal for the World Title, so that gives the next showdown another wrinkle of intrigue.

– The three-way main event match between Styles, Cole and O’Reilly with Lethal on commentary lived up to the big hype, as we saw several storylines packed into one bout – O’Reilly seeking revenge on Cole and Lethal scouting his next challenger for the World Title in Styles. As we know with these three guys, they each had their own entourage come to the ring – Styles with the Bucks, Cole with his Kingdom stablemates and O’Reilly with Bobby Fish and Michael Elgin. Liked that McGuinness ejected all from ringside to keep things as fair as possible and Lethal was entertaining on commentary, bragging that he was the object of everyone’ s affection and accused McGuinness of picking Strong and Styles as #1 contenders out of favoritism. Lethal’s “I guess I should stop bringing up Michael Elgin before you make him a #1 contender too” line was a laugher. The match itself saw all three men go at it, with O’Reilly sensibly getting to Cole whenever possible and Styles the perfect middle man with some stiff kicks. Also liked the unpredictability of their clashing styles, as we went from forearm strikes to submission maneuvers just like that. The three-way moves (backdrop/German suplex, three-way submission) were clever and inventive. Cole needed a convincing win since his heel turn and got it here, building his momentum up again. Of course, with everyone ejected for the match coming out afterwards, we expected a brawl to break out and one sure did. Liked the show-end visuals of ROH Bullet Club standing atop a fallen Kingdom before Lethal got in Styles’ face.

Quick Results

• The Young Bucks def. The Boys (w/Silas Young, Beer City Bruiser) via pinfall
• Roderick Strong def. Will Ferrara via submission
• Three-Way – Adam Cole def. AJ Styles and Kyle O’Reilly via pinfall