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UnWrest (ROH, 11/23/18)- Good Hype for Final Battle


This week's episode of Ring of Honor TV took a major step in promoting its big event in December. Let's get to this!




ROH Thoughts (11/23/18)

We get a review of the attack on Christopher Daniels by The Briscoes and the Tag Team Championship victory by SCU's Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian.

- The Kingdom (Matt Taven and TK O'Ryan) team up to wrestle The Boys. Matt Taven sends TK up to commentary and tells The Boys he will beat them up 1 on 2. Um, how is this supposed to get heat for  a heel? If anything, it makes him look tougher. If they wanted to get heat on him, HE should be the one to defer the match to his partner and go back up to commentary. The logic of this makes no sense. Vinny shows up after a few minutes and pulls one of The Boys under the ring. This allows Taven to get the win. I just couldn't get into it since 1) The Boys are not on Taven's level, which isn't that high to begin with, 2) Taven's booking is not getting him any more heat, and 3) It's the same old Kingdom story over and over again.

Ian interviews Jonathan Gresham in the ring. Gresham wants to prove he's the best technical wrestler in the world. He issues a challenge to any technical wrestler around the world to face him. The lights come off, and Zack Sabre Jr. is on the screen! He accepts the challenge. So, it will be Jonathan Gresham vs. ZACK SABRE JR at Final Battle. Please say Taka Michinoku will be in Sabre's corner. Simple, effective set up for the match, but it could have been better had Gresham's challenge been put on a backstage segment the previous week to set up the Sabre response. As this was, it was challenge/response from a pre-recorded Sabre conversation.

- SCU is shown in a hotel room. Daniels gets off the phone. Kaz and Sky officially have contracts. Daniels does not. So, he'll have to find a way to get a contract before the end of the year.

- Jenny Rose faces Kelly Klein in the next match for the final spot in the Women of Honor Championship Survival Match at Final Battle. Kelly Klein wins a hard fought match that actually had a good bit of heat to it from the live audience.

- The main event sees The Briscoes wrestle for probably the last time in a one-on-one tag team match against The Young Bucks. The winners will face Sky and Kaz for the ROH World Tag Team Championships. This was the kind of match you would expect from both teams that they could do in their sleep: by the numbers for the most part. That's not putting the match down at all. It was well wrestled and entertaining, but it's not something that's going to truly stand out either.
The end sees Matt Jackson and Jay Briscoe throw steel chairs to Mark Briscoe and Nick Jackson, respectively, to earn the Double DQ. Then they start fighting over the steel chair and hit the referee Todd Sinclair by accident. Ref Bump! Superkicks and Steel Chairs  are flying back and forth. They brawl aimlessly for a good minute until the security finally breaks it up. (If I were to guess, the security missed their spot to break up the fight.)

SCU!!! Here comes Kaz and Sky. They aren't happy with the result. Kaz says last time he had these titles, the Bucks took them and put Daniels and Kaz in the hospital. They went to war, and they're prepared to go back to war again. Dec. 14, Final Battle, Briscoes vs. Young Bucks vs. SCU IN LADDER WAR! That was a good way to end the show as now we have another main-event quality match for the card. ROH will be getting my money that evening.

Overall, this was a decent episode of ROH made more important thanks to the announced matches that are on the show. You add these to the already announced matches (Dalton Castle vs. Matt Taven, Jeff Cobb vs. Hangman Page, the Women of Honor Survival Match, and Cody vs. Jay Lethal), and you have one hell of a PPV. With that in mind, you can't call this show anything less than a success as it should hype up the fans to pay the money to see the show.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. Spread some awesomeness.

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