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 9/28/16)

A Tightened Grip On Legacy 

– The Silas Young-Toru Yano match was a randomly thrown out on television to air out the two’s character differences, all the more clear as Young was angry and Yano was a jokester. Kind of entertained at Young’s heel skills, as he even yelled at a kid on his birthday and wished him a terrible one. Yano’s charisma was on display as he purposely ticked off Young several times with his humor and did his signature spots from New Japan Pro Wrestling where he took the turnbuckle pad off and performed a low blow, all behind the Referee’s back. There were some good trades of near-falls towards the finish, as it came down to Young’s use of Yano’s own tactics against him to win on a point where he pulled the tights after a low blow. Young certainly needed the win and that was good to see, but we were baffled at why this would take place on the All Star Extravaganza go-home show, that was until the post-match angle where The Briscoe Brothers saved Yano from a further beatdown by Young. This made sense since Yano and The Briscoes would be partners at ASE as they’d pursue the Six-Man Tag Team Tournament.

– Now, Christopher Daniels made his name arguably off being one of Ring Of Honor’s founding fathers as the brains and voice behind The Prophecy. The guy has a profound ability on the stick and a Daniels promo was something of the norm in ROH’s heyday. However, this new Daniels brought over his partnership with Frankie Kazarian from Total Nonstop Action Wrestling as they turned the witty “Bad Influence” duo into angry bitter guys as The Addiction. They were the ROH World Tag Team Champions, so they had gold, but they felt immensely underwhelmed on the card. With the two set to battle against The Young Bucks and The Motor City Machine Guns at ASE in Ladder War VI, we were intrigued to see how this would come across for all teams involved. Out of nowhere, we got a money promo from Daniels, who was solo and mentioned how the belt he possessed seemed to be all he had to hold on to after his 23-year career and he was fine with that. He questioned his opponents if they knew how tight this grip would be to hold on to something he’d eventually have to let go. He wanted it to last forever and would do anything to keep it. This was an amazing promo and maybe the best thing Daniels has done in years. Where was that all this time? Plus, we now had a personal edge to this Ladder War match. Haven’t really heard from YB or MCMG, so at least we had this.

– Punishment Damian Martinez is a beast, there’s no doubt about that. A push for Martinez with BJ Whitmer and Kevin Sullivan at his side would seem like a good thing on paper, right? Wrong. The problem here was that Sullivan was pushed as this “Father Of The Second Son” and looks like a befuddled wizard. Even worse, the “Evil” duo has tried to sucker Steve Corino back into their graces, much to Corino’s understandable hesitance, give his long feud with Whitmer. We didn’t mind the squash match between Cheeseburger (poor guy) and Martinez to get the tall monster over, but this ridiculous storyline with Whitmer/Sullivan trying to get in Corino’s head took over the whole damn thing because Sullivan sat on commentary and referred to Corino as a past name he was known by. We won’t even try to look up what it was. It’s just that bad. They tried to convince him to join Sullvan because he was his son. The heel duo beat Cheeseburger up post-match and also took out Will Ferrara when he tried to save him. The crowd’s relentless boos might’ve been an easy indication that this isn’t over in the least. It’s ROH’s attempt at a “scary” storyline, but this wasn’t anything but.

– ROH World Television Champion Bobby Fish’s backstage promo on his ASE opponent, Donovan Dijak wasn’t anything special, which was disappointing since Fish knows how to show his confidence off to babyfaces, but when finally put against a worthy heel, he came up short. Didn’t hinder our interest in the actual match itself, but this didn’t help matters either.

– Jay Lethal’s backstage promo on his ASE opponent, Tetsuya Naito continued to sell his angst to get revenge from when his former ally turned on him when pitted against Bullet Club a few weeks back. This was also a good way to keep Lethal busy until his inevitable Title rematch.

– The ROH World Champion Adam Cole’s backstage promo on his ASE opponent, “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin gave a good perspective of how high of a standard he placed Elgin on before he felt like he was a coward when he fled to Japan while he himself stood in ROH and rose through the ranks to become the best, which was proven with the belt. While it kind of wrote Elgin out since he was already the underdog, at least this was a smart way to push the ASE main event as well as this episode’s, since Cole and Hangman Page would take on Elgin/Hiroshi Tanahashi in tag team action.

– We liked that Kyle O’Reilly sat on commentary for the Cole/Page-Elgin/Tanahashi main event since it pushed the ASE main event and O’Reilly’s own eagerness to get his hands on Cole, as he felt he was destined to battle Cole eventually. He also spoke of his desire to become Champion. While Elgin’s chances to beat Cole were slim, the fact that he held Championship in both NJPW and CMLL helped sell his credibility as someone with experience. The match itself had plenty of time and we saw signature spots from Page (shooting star press off the apron) as well as some classic mockery of Tanahashi’s air guitar skills by Cole. We felt O’Reilly could’ve been stronger on commentary, but it wasn’t all bad. We also liked how they managed to have Elgin get a win while still protecting the Champ, as he pinned Page to end it. The face-off between Champion and challenger was an appropriate way to end the go-home show.

Quick Results 

• Silas Young def. Toru Yano via pinfall 
• Punishment Damian Martinez (w/Kevin Sullivan, BJ Whitmer) def. Cheeseburger via pinfall 
• “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin/Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Adam Cole/Hangman Page via pinfall