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 2/3/16)

Forever Trolling

– The ROH World Television Championship match between Champion Roderick Strong and Masada creatively kept the “Roddy Versus The World” storyline going, since death match mogul Masada was as polar opposite from Strong as you could get. On that note, Masada hasn’t aged a bit and was somewhat over with the crowd. Strong has been more heelish lately and this was no different. Still, it was unique to see these two go at it and we had some decent action along the way. We understood the lenience of rules throughout, but did we need the bamboo sticks bit towards the end? At least Strong’s knee strike was the final move here. The post-match stuff with Bobby Fish coming out to “troll” Strong for taking on the world yet avoiding him was a solid argument that’ll likely be leading to a match between the two at the 14th Anniversary Show. Strong stood heel with his retort that Fish was jealous of his success and tried to emulate that, even though he lost at Final Battle. Strong seemingly had the last action by throwing his mic at Fish after calling him a sore loser, where Fish called Strong a coward and would continue to haunt him to get what he wanted.

– Certainly like the idea of dedicating TV time to the Top Prospect Tournament and we had more Round 1 action, this time between “Young Boy” Colby Corino and Punisher Martinez (generic Mexican giant?) which provided Corino a chance to impress everyone, as BJ Whitmer supported him from ringside. This was the reverse “David Vs. Goliath,” with Corino doing a chunk of selling for Martinez, who overpowered and outweighed him. That said, when Corino made his comeback flurry, he had the crowd on his side, but the joy was temporary. Martinez gave him a sick-looking apron Powerbomb and got the win a few minutes later. Typical Corino squash. The post-match angle involving Whitmer, Corino and Mr. Wrestling 3 was par for the course for the feud that’ll never end. This was basically Whitmer taking advantage of an opportunity to beat down Corino in front of his father, who was pretending to be someone else to keep his own job. Or so we think. It’s hard to analyze, since they “broke the fourth wall” by having Mr. Wrestling 3 walk Corino to the back, which obviously gives away what was going on. We wish a match/payoff would happen already, though that seems unlikely given Steve Corino’s contractual status, but give us something at least.

– The tag team main event between reDRagon and ROH World Champion Jay Lethal/Adam Cole was a fun, logical way to hype the three-way between Lethal, Cole and Kyle O’Reilly for the Title at the 14th Anniversary Show. We also had Matchmaker Nigel McGuinness on commentary to give an overall perspective on where the three men stood in the match. We even had the little things like Cole/Lethal having their moments of tension and inexperience as a team compared to the cohesive reDRagon, which bled nicely into the finish, which saw Cole pushed into the Lethal Injection finisher and pinned by O’Reilly, which helps further their feud. We should note that Lethal was over with this crowd and it affected the match pace at times, but everybody was hot for the finish. Good stuff all-around.

Quick Results

• ROH World Television Championship – Roderick Strong (Champion) def. Masada via pinfall to retain
• Top Prospect Tournament – Round 1 – Punisher Martinez def. Colby Corino (w/BJ Whitmer) via pinfall to advance to next round 
• reDRagon def. Jay Lethal (w/Truth Martini, Taeler Hendrix)/Adam Cole via pinfall