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 2/1/17)

Battle Of The Jays 

– With Wrestle Kingdom 11 on the back burner (though it aired on Jan. 4 and they’re just giving us the Ring Of Honor followup now), we had a new ROH World Champion and his name was Adam Cole… bay bay. The opening video looked back at Cole’s match with Kyle O’Reilly at WK11 and had him cut a promo over match footage about how “he” effectively concluded the story. Finally, some updated stuff. We were spinning our wheels there.

– Out came the lovably tough team of Cheeseburger/Will Ferrara. Oh look, a little stuffed burger. How cute. In the ring already was The Tempura Boyz (like New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s version of 3 Count, only with two asian dudes) and Coast To Coast – comprised of Leon St. Giovanni/Shaheem Ali. It appears as if this will be a three-team dance, because why not have a dance with so many participants? Alright, they mentioned CB’s WK11 involvement. With a fast-paced chaotic start, it was apparent that this would be a spotfest to the max. For what it was worth though, LSG (that’s St. Giovanni for short, not the drug… Special K has been gone a long time) performed an awesome springboard phoenix splash. Before they cut to commercial, we got an appearance from ROH World Tag Team Champion The Young Bucks. Alright, time to establish other “younger” teams on their trails. We get it. Simultaneously, YB had the agenda to push this soon-to-come dream match with TNA World Tag Team Champions The Broken Hardys. Perhaps so overcome with emotion from all the spots, YB took it upon themselves to tell Kevin Kelly and the viewers that whoever won this would receive a Title shot. Call us crazy, but now we were definitely set on CB/Ferrara. YB also smartly pointed out the Hardys’ absence. Coast To Coast did a double move of their namesake. Other than that, it was TB who won with a piledriver. Now, it was time to see if YB would go in the ring and give them the shot right here. On the mic, YB again ragged on the Hardys not being in the flesh and formally announced their official Title shot for TB to happen next week. With a parting gift, they gave TB a duo superkick and introduced their main squeeze, Cole. Pomp and circumstance and such. Yay, Story Time. Going to guess it’s about KOR. He found some inspiration from JBL as he called himself a “God” for being the first three-time World Champion. He pointed out who he was and who he wasn’t, and picked on Dalton Castle and Bobby Fish. He turned his attention to the ROH Decade Of Excellence Tournament participants and explicitly omitted Christopher Daniels. Funny. This was your basic “bragging heel stable” promo and it was what it was.

– We got a Juice Robinson hype video, of former NXT fame as CJ Parker. You see, in NJPW, he’s a happy guy with dreadlocks and wrestles. Yeah, that didn’t establish much. Not to say we were complaining to see him receive a shot at the ROH World Television Championship against Champion “The Villain” Marty Scurll.

– The ROH World Television Championship match with Alex Shelley on commentary was appropriate TV material. Why was Shelley on commentary anyway? What relation does he have to this Title? Alright, whatever. We’ll get past that. Marty’s entrance was the right dosage of spooky, unsettling and everything awesome. If you don’t know Scurll, just picture a human form of “Spy Vs. Spy” if it was a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Based off how this looks, we’d guess this was a bout where Juice looks good, but ultimately loses as Scurll builds momentum. Marty was way over, which why wouldn’t he be? Just look at him. After Scurll scurried away from a clean break, they exchanged some technical chain wrestling. They then shared some nice slaps. Robinson then hit a cool far diving headbutt. For a “Villain,” Scurll sure panders to the crowd a lot. He was practically begging for cheers when he gestured the crossface chicken wing. Buyable spot where Robinson ran into the barricade and missed, which drew Scurll to deliver a piledriver for two. Once Robinson popped his hand up, that set up the signature finger snap. Juice wasn’t wearing a white hat all match exactly either, as he used the ropes for leverage on a pin attempt. Before he could hit Pulp Friction, Scurll locked in the chicken wing and it was tap out time for Juicy Juice. Post-match, Scurll got on the mic and put himself over as a madhouse of wickedness who had no competition. Almost like that was a cue, six men answered the “Open Challenge” – Shelley, Chris Sabin, Jay White, Lio Rush, Jonathan Gresham and Donovan Dijak. That’s about right. In fact, a one-on-one between Scurll and any of these six could carry things for months. They hot-shotted all that to hype a Six-Way Match where the winner would move on to challenge Scurll, as said by Sabin. Still a nice hook that should give somebody a rub. How about Dijak? That’d be killer.

– The ROH Decade Of Excellence Semifinal main event almost wrote itself since it was between Jay Lethal and Jay Briscoe. One of the more storied rivalries in company history, they used the fact that Briscoe was 0-2 against Lethal to dictate the situation. The hype video beforehand with footage was eh, but the promos were much better. Briscoe noted that he needed to “shut up and just put them up” to be able to see if the third time was the charm for him. For Lethal, he put over his 427-day World Title reign notorious for defeating Briscoe to get the belt and retaining against him on the one-year anniversary. We liked that Lethal was in a suit for his promo. Frankie Kazarian was on commentary for the match, probably to “scout” for Daniels. There was mutual respect between the guys and a “Both These Guys!” and “Jay” chants from the crowd. Cole observed from the ramp and soon joined the booth. Briscoe hit the Jay Driller for an early two. Briscoe then hit a suicide dive that went through one barricade and almost another while Kazarian/Cole bickered about Daniels’ chances in the tourney. Lethal locked in the Figure Four, which brought Cole to claim he “invented” the move. Funny. Both men countered each other’s finishers. It was a good match, but perhaps they laid it on a little thick gushing how great it was. Briscoe won in the end with a lariat, a bit of a flat finish considering the ramifications. However, they finally had Briscoe salvage the third contest and advance to the next round. We’re curious what’s next for Lethal here. Guess with all our curiosities, they’ll have to wait for next week.

Quick Results 

• Three-Way Tag – The Tempura Boyz def. Coast To Coast and Cheeseburger/Will Ferrara via pinfall 
• ROH World Television Championship – “The Villain” Marty Scurll (Champion) def. Juice Robinson via submission to retain 
• ROH Decade Of Excellence Tournament – Semifinal – Jay Briscoe def. Jay Lethal via pinfall to advance