https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSuihOj-ixE
6 Man Mayhem: Shane Taylor gets the Victory
This week’s Ring of Honor television show kicks off with a 6 Man Mayhem Match. There’s no introductions or entrances. We get straight to the action. The rules for this match are Lucha Rules. If a man leaves the ring, another one can enter without a tag. Anyone can tag anyone. Chris Sabin, Kenny King, Rhett Titus, Flip Gordon, Shane Taylor, and Luchasaurus.
The match starts off with Luchasaurus and Chris Sabin in the match. After a quick back and forth, Rhett Titus and Kenny King both wind up in the ring. This is a matchup of former tag team partners. They go through a quick series of moves, reversals, and near misses only to have Shane Taylor wind up in the ring. He goes for a double clothesline. King and Titus duck. King and Titus bust out some old All Night Xpress double team moves.
After some mayhem, Gordon winds up in the ring and hits a nice spring board cutter. Taylor takes out Gordon with a HUGE shoulder block on Gordon. After a commercial, we get back and the match has broken down. Titus hits a dive on the outside. King with a block buster on the outside. Luchasaurus hits some impressive kicks. Shane Taylor hits a massive cannonball on the outside. Finally, Flip hits a flip dive on the outside to everyone else.
After all the chaos, we enter the final segment of the match. Gordon somehow winds up hitting a 450 for a near fall on Shane Taylor. Kenny King pulls Gordon out of the ring to stop the count. Gordon’s back in and is going for a springboard move when King nails him with a chair. The referee ejects Kenny King. I guess multi-man matches in ROH are not no disqualification.
Chris Sabin Injured
Complete ACL tear. 8 – 12 months.
— chriSabin (@SuperChrisSabin) January 23, 2019
Somewhere in all this mess, Chris Sabin is injured. He took to twitter to announce he’ll be out for 8-12 months. He did not have any action the last few minutes of this match. The final moments came with Shane Taylor no selling a Samoan Drop from Rhett Titus. Taylor pops up and hits Greetings from 216 for the win.
Overall, a pretty fun match. Luchasaurus is impressive. I’m not so sure about that gimmick, but he’s an agile big man with a moveset that could get over. It’s a shame for Chris Sabin. With ROH in roster overhaul, he may have had a chance to move up the card. Shane Taylor gets the victory, but I’m not so sure a returning Flip Gordon didn’t need it more. All in all, a very solid opener.
The Bouncers defeat Master & Machine
We’re getting our first look at a young tag team making some waves on the independent scene in North Carolina. Griff Garrison and Marcus Kross are known in ROH as Master and Machine. Kross is a smaller guy, but has a very interesting look about him. Garrison looks more like the traditional wrestler. These two guys are barely out of high school and did not get a ton of offense tonight. However, the offense they did get in was fun and effective.
Basically, this was meant to be a squash match for the Bouncers. I’m not sure what ROH sees in these guys. Maybe, it’s just me, but bigger isn’t always better. I’m no skinny man myself, but the appeal of these guys is they like to drink beer and are fat. Anyway, they are getting a bit of a push. They do hit a nice superplex into a frog splash for the victory. For the purposes of the match, it was effective in getting over the Bouncers.
The Briscoes defeat Chuckie T and Colt Cabana to retain the ROH World Tag Team Championships
Chuckie T announces that Beretta is out for the match. He replaces him with Colt Cabana. This match starts out hot. All four men are going at it, in and around the ring. The announcers are really putting over the violent streak of the Briscoes recently. If you’ve not been watching ROH lately, the Briscoes have been running wild with Bully Ray, Silas Young, and Shane Taylor. They’ve been attacking people all over the place. The final few moments of Bound for Honor were a massive brawl with everyone in the company fighting. This is some foreshadowing for the final segment tonight.
The match finally makes it into the ring. After the Briscoes beat up Chuckie T, Cabana comes in with the hot tag. Cabana is big time over with the crowd. He just had one of his best matches ever at Bound for Honor against Zack Sabre, Jr. Cabana is on a roll both in this match and out. He hits the Bionic Elbow on both brothers and then gets a near fall with an Apple on Mark Briscoe.
The match breaks down and is pure chaos for a while. After a blockbuster on the outside by Mark Briscoe takes out Cabana, the Briscoes double team Chuckie T. He manages to escape a Jay driller and a doomsday device. However, the brotherly duo proves too much and eventually Jay hits the Jay driller for the 3 count.
After the match, the Briscoes continue the violence. Jay sets up Chuckie T on a table. Mark hits a froggy-bow off the top rope to end the segment. The Briscoes are always fun. They aren’t putting on any wrestling clinics, but their matches are always entertaining in the ECW kind of way.
Jay Lethal Addresses Life Blood
The final segment of the show features Jay Lethal addressing the crowd and the newly formed Life Blood faction. Last week, Juice Robinson formed Life Blood. A faction that promises to put the honor back in ROH.
This week, Jay Lethal comes out to cut a similar promo. He talks about a company that’s deteriorating. No, he’s not talking about their entire roster going to AEW. He’s talking about the plague infecting ROH. That plague is the violence being caused by Bully Ray, Silas Young, The Briscoes, and Shane Taylor. He’s also talking about Matt Taven who is running around with a fake, purple belt. He wants to get back to the vision and mission of ROH.
Out comes Life Blood. Jay tells them while he appreciates they all have the same vision, he doesn’t want to join their group. Juice counters with he wasn’t invited. This teased a little tension. Nice moment here. However, it doesn’t lead to a fight. Jay then says he respects them even more. He then puts over each of the 6 individuals, one by one. This was a little hokey.
After all the compliments have been dished out, Juice says the talking needs to stop and let the action begin. He challenges Jay to find 4 guys and they’ll have a 5 on 5 match next week to set the example of what competition should look like in ROH.
Final Review
There was some solid action in tonight’s show. It lacked the star power of ROH in recent years, but ROH is in a major transition right now. Getting Juice Robinson, Bandido, David Finlay, Rush, Mark Haskins, and Zack Sabre, Jr. added to more dates will certainly help ease the transition. In the mean time, ROH is using it’s established guys to bridge the gap until they can get over these new characters.
I think this show would earn a solid 3 out of 5 stars. Finishing off with a subdued in ring promo made you forget a bit about the overall action of the show. Down the line, we’re going to see Life Blood vs. Bully Ray, Young, Taylor and The Briscoes. I also see big things ahead for Juice Robinson in ROH. Juice and his buddies have potential. However, only time will tell if they are capable of being elite or not.
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